


This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

by Faithful_Sigyn



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: 1920s, Alternate Universe - The Great Gatsby, And Zsasz is more of a cameo than a major character, Eventual Romance, Fish Mooney is only referenced, Inspired by The Great Gatsby, M/M, More characters and tags may come later, Nygmobblepot, Organized Crime, POV First Person, Prohibition, Speakeasies, but lots of differences along the way, similar characters, similar overarching plot, similar setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-03-30 14:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13953489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faithful_Sigyn/pseuds/Faithful_Sigyn
Summary: A Nygmobblepot-focused 'The Great Gatsby' AU, with Oswald Cobblepot as Jay Gatsby, and Edward Nygma as Nick Carraway - the true target of our Gatsby's affections.After moving to Gotham City in the year 1922, Edward Nygma is fascinated by his neighbour in the beautiful house who throws elaborate parties for seemingly the whole city every weekend without fail. While trying to integrate himself into a society that may not be as squeaky clean as it looks to be on the surface, he finds himself slowly drawn towards the man in the mansion and the many secrets he keeps.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will overall follow the same outline as the book, so will be nine chapters long if all goes well, focusing on vaguely the same sort of events as each chapter in the book does but with my own story twists as well. As such, the first couple of chapters will be mostly introducing the characters and the setting so bare with me for the Nygmobblepot content. Also some choices might seem odd at first (like having Butch and Barbara married) but hear me out because not everything is as it seems at first glance!

Gotham, 1922; the tempo of the city had changed sharply. The buildings were higher, the parties were bigger, the morals were looser and the liquor was cheaper. The restlessness approached hysteria. And yet I would have remained quite happy, oblivious to it all. My life before I moved to Gotham was a quiet one: small family, no real friends to speak of, not much in the way of a social life at all. I never really minded it actually; I was quite used to being alone by then. But that was the life of a small-town resident. And I knew that city life was always going to be different.

When I got my new job and was told I would be relocating to a city, to _Gotham_ city of all places, I knew that quiet life would change, but I never gave too much thought as to how. There may be more going on around me of course, parties and events of all shapes and sizes, but that didn’t mean I’d be invited to any of them, or be involved in them in anyway. There’d be more people on the street, more people to duck and dodge around to get to my destination, but I didn’t have to otherwise interact with them. In fact, the only thing that would definitely be any different was that I had a family connection in the city, and one who actually wanted to see me.

I won’t bore you with tales of my past, but it is safe to say I do not get along well with my parents, and the best thing I’ve ever done for them was to move out of their house to ensure I was no longer a burden to them. Moving away further still would surely just be a bonus, but they never said anything in answer to my letter when I told them of my new career in Gotham. I’m not surprised, they don’t usually response to them, but I feel it’s still worth trying. Maybe they keep them somewhere, a record of my adventures to look back on in old age… It seems unlikely though, I imagine most meet the fireplace without ever being opened. Ah, but I said I wouldn’t ramble on about this, didn’t I?

As I have never been particularly close to my family, extended or otherwise, I had no idea before I received my own letter stating it, that I had a cousin living in Gotham. A Miss Barbara Kean, a woman of good standing and wealth, who had married a Mr Butch Gilzean and since taken his last name. That was about as far as my research had taken me before I moved in to my new home actually. I’d received the note inviting me round for dinner, just one of those polite pleasantries I’d imagined, since it would seem very strange for people to learn such a well to do woman had family nearby and she hadn’t reached out. But I was fine with that; I knew no-one else here yet, and there were worse ways to meet new people than through pity or image preservation. 

I was only settled for a few days before I was to visit their luxurious house for a lavish meal and chatter most inane. I felt very out of place but then that’s not a particularly unusual feeling for me either, so I tried my best to play the part I was in, talking jovially but not too eagerly about my interests and my prospects when the conversation turned in my direction. It was nice enough, and a good change from being locked away in my bedroom for the evening with the daily crossword from the newspaper. 

The evening was uneventful for a while. I was introduced to a friend of Barbara’s, a Leslie Thompkins, who told me about her work as a nurse. It wasn’t particularly glamourous, and not what I’d been expecting when she first introduced herself, but then she still had a grand background to speak of. It was quickly becoming apparent of course that I did not, that I came from the lesser side of my family, but my connection to Barbara was enough to keep me afloat in company like this and I was suddenly very grateful for the invitation and the opportunity to place a foot in the door of this lifestyle. 

Not that everything was entirely pleasant. I was not an immediate fan of Barbara’s husband. Butch by name and nature it seemed, and a man who thought himself to be quite intelligent by the way he rambled on about the most recent book he’d read. Though I disagreed with some of the comments he was making, I was not in any position to question the man of the house on his opinions, and so I waited quietly, nodding and smiling, for the conversation to simply move on. It did not, as Barbara soon took on the mantle of challenging him, giving me the first glimpse at a familial connection between the pair of us. Butch dismissed her for the most part though, seemingly not interested in debating but simply in professing his own thoughts undisputed. Another sign that I was not quite right for this company: though I knew the world worked like that of course, I had often been told I did not know when to keep my mouth shut. Too many discussions like this one and I was sure to say something I would regret. But for now though, I seemed to be playing the gracious guest quite well, even as Barbara groaned in a rather unladylike way and tried to usher us further along in the conversation.

I am aware that I have been skirting over the intricate details of the evening so far, offering only vague topics rather than individual words, but I can assure you, this is all that is necessary. I hope you do not begrudge me doing so, but my story has areas within it in which I would like to slow the pace, and take the opportunity to indulge in the important moments. If I am to waste time explaining exactly which way Leslie pointed her shoe, or the precise tone Butch used when demanding the next course of our food, we shall never be able to enjoy the right parts. So I hope you can trust me to tell my tale in the way I believe is most fitting. And if not? Well then, we reach a bit of an impasse, don’t we?

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the atmosphere had settled again, back to the just barely above dull vibe I assume my hosts had been aiming for. I don’t mean it as an insult of course; I simply mean keeping dinner conversation pleasant was a positive thing to do, and the sort of ‘excitement’ one could expect in a situation like this usually came from arguments and fights rather than a particularly dazzling new topic of choice. Or perhaps that was just my limited experience talking. Either way, I was enjoying myself perfectly well on the back of ‘pleasant’, until Butch suddenly excused himself from the table to take a phone call in another room.

I didn’t think anything of this myself – it was a perfectly ordinary thing to do after all – but something changed in the room after that moment. Barbara no longer engaged, instead choosing to stare away from the table into the middle distance, occasionally offering a noise of confirmation that she was still listening but that neither myself nor Leslie believed. In fact, she didn’t remain at the table for much longer before rushing after her husband, and muffled voices were soon drifting slowly back towards the two of us left alone with the remnants of our dinner.

Leslie was quiet for a little while longer, looking towards the door with her neck extended slightly, like she was straining to listen to the words that were fading into indistinguishable noises before they reached us. **“Poor thing,”** she said a moment later, picking up her fork again and returning to the food even in the absence of our hosts.

I had never been an expert in social graces, so I paused to stare at my own plate for a moment before checking my suspicion against the apparently more socially fluent guest. **“… Shouldn’t we wait for them to come back?”** I received a smile for that, a surprisingly soft one, and Leslie did pause for a moment, though seemingly only for my benefit.

 **“I imagine this could take a while, and they won’t want our food to go cold. But we can talk ourselves instead if you’d rather.”** She folded her hands against her lap instead, and nodded towards me as though passing over the baton of conversation. 

There was only one thing on my mind at the moment though. **“Do you know what that was about?”** It was rude to pry into other people’s affairs, I knew that, but that little scene had been quite unusual and my curiosity had always been a very strong driving force for me. Too strong some might say.

Luckily, Leslie didn’t seem to mind. **“I’m not usually one for gossip,”** she began, **“but considering it’s a friend… I would imagine the phone call is from Butch’s… _friend_ in the city.”**

I admit, I was none the wiser at such a statement, and could do little more than blink back at her for a moment. **“Oh… is it… usual for conversations with friends to take a long time here then?”** Was that what I was missing?

She gave me another of those smiles, looking almost sympathetic as she added, **“It’s not that kind of friend Ed.”** She leaned in a little closer to avoid eavesdroppers, even though there was no-one else around. I felt myself moving to meet her in the middle nevertheless though. **“Barbara thinks her husband has another woman in the city. She thinks that’s who the phone call is from. Isn’t that awful? I have a good mind to tell him exactly that I think of it all, but Barbara doesn’t want me causing a scene.”** She let out a small sigh before continuing on. **”I can be here for her at least though. I can come to these dinners and keep her company. I imagine that’s why she reached out to you as well; you said you two hadn’t met before tonight?”**

Still a little dazed at the news I had heard, I only nodded along to her question. Her logic was sound too, and made me feel a little better about what had felt initially like a polite invitation for appearances-sake. I had never indulged in much gossip before, it had rarely ever spread in my direction in fact, and I was about to ask advice on what I could do to help the situation too, if anything, when– 

**“CAKE?!”** Neither of us had heard Barbara enter the room again, nor seen her approach wielding a knife the size of her face in one hand, and a large sponge cake in the other. I must admit I jumped at the sound of her voice as I certainly hadn’t been expecting it from such close proximity, and Leslie didn’t seem to have handled it much better either. 

She recovered more quickly than I did though, and was soon offering a polite **“Oh erm, yes please,”** and holding a plate out towards the other woman while I remained wide-eyed and simply watched. The cake was placed down on the table, a slice was cut and given to Leslie, and then the knife was pointed towards me instead.

 **“Eddie?”** I blinked again, taking a moment to get over my silly shock at the situation before nodding wordlessly, only managing to blurt out a ‘please’ a few seconds later when the plate was already being handed back to me. The three of us sat in silence then to eat our cake together, though I was dying to ask where Butch had got to. I could no longer hear voices down the corridor after all so I could only assume his phone call was over, but he hadn’t returned to the table yet… 

As though she’d been able to sense where my thoughts were drifting to, Barbara suddenly let out a shrill bark of laughter as she stood from her chair and moved around the table to perch on the arm of my chair instead. **“I’m so sorry for the disturbances tonight Eddie, I hope you’ve still had a good time though? You’ll come again, won’t you?!”**

Funnily enough, looking up into those wide eyes, I couldn’t help but feel there was only one answer I was allowed to give to that inquiry. **“Yes of course… thank you for the invite. Although I am up early for work tomorrow so I should probably get going soon…”**

Another snap of laughter, which rang in my ears for several seconds this time considering how close I had been to the source of the sound. **“What a good little worker you are. Well we won’t keep you, off you go Eddie, we’ll have you over again oh so soon, cheerio!”** I hadn’t quite meant to excuse myself at that exact moment; I was only half way through my slice of cake. But despite staring down at it longingly for another moment or two, I thought it best not to try and correct my mistake but to take the opportunity offered to me. So I got to my feet, retrieved my coat, made my goodbyes to all but Butch who had still not returned to us, and headed for home.

The journey across the river to my home didn’t take long, and yet I still found myself exhausted by the time I made it to the street of houses on which mine was the final little cuboid tucked away almost out of view. It was the smallest on the street by far and looked to almost have been placed there by accident when compared to the grand structure beside it. I was yet to meet my neighbour, but I had admired that house every time I had passed it. I knew nothing about architecture, but the large windows, the turreted rooves, the hedges and fountains and flowers of every variety: to me at least, the place felt magical. And I often found myself pausing on my walk home just to look at it.

Tonight was no different in the end, and my feet inevitably slowed to a halt as I looked up towards the rows of windows, most of which were lit despite the silence in the air. Perhaps a large family lived there? I was yet to meet any of the occupants so it was possible. But while I found myself thinking this, dropping my gaze lower as I moved reluctantly across to my own, far less dramatic looking front door, I paused again as my eyes fell across a figure in the near distance. 

I couldn’t make out more than a shadow and a vague outline even as I peered towards the mysterious person who was stood by the edge of the river that backed up to my neighbour’s house to form a makeshift sort of beach. I wasn’t even sure in which direction they were facing: looking straight towards me or out towards the other side of the water. If it was the former, well, it was rude to stare, so I offered a smile and a small wave… But I received nothing in return, meaning it likely was the latter and I had only succeeded in making a fool of myself in the meantime. If no-one had seen though, no harm had been done, so with a small blush I hurried away inside my house, closing the door behind myself long before I could entertain the idea of going across to the figure and introducing myself. We were neighbours after all, it was the polite thing to do.

Oh well, there would be numerous opportunities for that yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having met Butch, Barbara and Leslie not long after moving to his new home, Ed continues with his usual day to day life, until a surprise encounter with Butch knocks him from his usual schedule into a very strange scenario indeed. After a disastrous day, he returns home to find a lavish looking letter waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support for the first chapter! Hopefully this next one keeps things going in the right direction. Much like the book, this is another scene setting chapter really, though we begin to veer away slightly at the end, and next chapter we should start to see some more significant differences (and get our first introduction to Oz!).

Life continued to pass as one might expect life to do. I woke up every morning, I went to work, I battled through what was usually a fairly monotonous day, and then I went home. I would pause to look towards my neighbour’s extravagant home, allow myself a moment to fantasise about what a life like that would be like, and then I would trundle off into my own abode for a brief, unexciting meal and then it back to sleep, only to repeat the cycle again the next day. I am quite a fan of routine actually, despite how I may complain about it. To have the world laid out in predictable chunks of time, to know where you will be at a certain time of day on any date in the year, is quite a comforting feeling. I don’t dislike surprises and I can adapt to change, but as the default, a nice neat schedule and a system for living make me feel the most at peace.

It certainly hadn’t taken me long to fall into one, and few things seemed to arise to interrupt it. I had not heard from Barbara or Butch since our meal together, though I did occasionally see Butch on my travels into work. He took the same train as me, though seemingly not at the same time every day strangely enough – perhaps he worked across two offices, although the more I considered it, the less certain I was of what his job actually was. I made a note to ask him the next time we talked, but then I wasn’t exactly in a rush to make that happen. In all honesty I quite like gossip, and the flutter of butterflies at secretly whispering to Leslie about what was going on had been quite a fun feeling, but it didn’t feel right to try and insert myself into their troubles when I was still such an outsider to their little family.

Of course, some things are just outside of one’s own control, and sometimes fate decides where one will end up anyway. It was a bleary morning in which I crossed paths with Butch again, on one of the train rides we shared. Rather than simply a polite nod of acknowledgement as we seated ourselves at opposite ends of the carriage to then ignore each other from then on, when Butch’s eyes met mine he seemed to brighten, and came across to seat himself beside me – a little too close for my liking and I was soon shuffling slightly closer to the window, though it didn’t do much to help. **“Just the man I was hoping to see!”** he said, clapping me on the back so hard I lurched forwards and my glasses nearly fell from my nose.

It took me a moment to straighten myself again, before I turned to him with raised eyebrows and a curious, **“Oh?”** I am very rarely the person people actually want to see. I can provide a good distraction, or an intermediate when the preferred person is delayed, but I am not often the actual target. So I admit, I was intrigued by the sudden enthusiasm.

**“Yeah Eddie Nygums, right? Babs’ cousin.”**

**“Nygma,”** I corrected with a slight sigh, but I wasn’t given the opportunity to say much more anyway.

**“Right, right. Listen, I got a favour to ask you. You work with money, right? Big business accountant or something like that.”**

**“Something like that.”** My responses were becoming a little more hesitant, despite the fact the situation was becoming clearer – he wanted me for my job, not my company… That did make more sense really.

His hand collided with my shoulder again, but I had at least braced this time, even if I did try to shrug it off as quickly as possible. **“Great! Got a little job I need you to do for me.”** I frowned a little at that, keen to ask for details but again, this wasn’t presenting itself as a very two way conversation. **“But that’s for later. For now you’re gonna spend the day with me. We’re just gonna go pick someone up and then we’ll have a little fun, alright?”**

**“That’s very kind Mr Gil-”**

**“Call me Butch.”**

**“That’s very kind Butch, but I’m afraid I do have to get to wo-”**

The much larger man snorted in amusement, and I have to say, I suddenly felt a little uncomfortable about this situation. **“Don’t be such a baby, come on, live a little.”** Though the tone of the conversation was still jovial, the fact that Butch was sat between me and any hope of an exit was enough to intimidate me into agreeing. I apologise, as I am sure a lot of you are not happy with my timidity here. Alas, I am not a fantastically brave man, and this city was still new and strange to me. 

The train was currently passing through an area I had been told was called The Narrows, and the window I was practically pressed up against provided a particularly grim view of a world I did not particularly want to get lost in. The only thing I could see clearly through the smog and the dust was a large wooden sign with words that I could not make out besides ‘Strange’, beneath a large pair of pink tinted glasses which seemed to be staring back towards me. So perhaps it was that that was making me feel uncomfortable, the idea that the outside world was just as frightening and dangerous as the potential future of the day that Butch was offering me. Whatever the case, I did not find myself capable of saying no to his ‘offer’. Call me weak if that helps you, but I was soon being ‘guided’ off the train at a stop I did not recognise, though I was abandoned a moment later as Butch rushed off to meet whoever it was we were supposedly picking up.

The Narrows felt… sad. It was in the air, a depressive atmosphere wrapping around ever brick and dying shrub. I didn’t want to stay here a minute longer than I had to. I had honestly considered retreating back to the train station now my companion had vanished from sight, but as soon as I had turned to take my first step back in that direction, I caught sight of Butch approaching with a woman in tow whom I did not recognise. And of course immediately my mind began buzzing, winding back to the story Leslie told me about ‘another woman in the city’. This must be her, and Butch was about to simply introduce me to her like any other innocent acquaintance? Did he think I didn’t know, did he suspect I would not work it out? … Or was I perhaps overthinking this just slightly, and this really was all as benign as it seemed? I offered a smile to the approaching woman, instinctively hiding my hands behind my back because I have never been a big fan of handshakes and I find removing the temptation is a great way to discourage them.

The woman stopped a step or two away from me, eyeing me with a fierce enough glance that my smile began to falter a little in response. **“Ed this is Tabitha, she’s a friend o’ mine,”** Butch said as he paused beside her, though he seemed in a rush to get going again. That left me with only the briefest opportunity to say ‘how do you do’ (a pleasantry that was not returned to me) before we suddenly continued on our journey.

And any hope I had had of the day being an innocent one slowly vanished at the turn of events I found myself a part of following this last moment of simplicity.

I was led to an apartment somewhere within the city, very unassuming from the outside and not all that much better on the inside either. Tabitha and Butch actually disappeared into a back room for a while and left me to explore the place (and I will admit that I kept an ear out just in case there was anything I could report back to Leslie about, but they only seemed to be talking). While they were gone, there was a knock at the door, and another handful of guests let themselves in which was enough to summon the pair back out into the open. I was somewhat ignored from then on, though I am fairly used to slinking away into the corner of rooms for social gatherings anyway so I was quite alright with the situation. And besides, everyone was whispering, and I hadn’t been invited to join the conversation, so there were few other options available to me besides continuing to explore the room.

I was pulled from my investigation when the impromptu meeting suddenly broke apart with the sound of a cork popping from a bottle. I don’t drink usually. I am not a fan of anything that can interfere with my mind’s ability to process things, and alcohol is a prime criminal of such an effect. But I was so far from my comfort zone by the time a glass was shoved roughly into my hand, the idea of _not_ being able to overthink exactly how many ways today could continue to go wrong had become a somewhat appealing one, and I found myself joining in the revelry, or as much as I was able to anyway.

Over the course of the evening I was talked to by most of the guests of the sudden party I found myself a part of, and details of the private little conversation of earlier were slowly dripped out to me. Unfortunately, my memory of these little chats did not hold strong by the next morning, and I sadly do not remember the details. However, I certainly got the impression that there was something not altogether lawful about what was going on. Then again, the free-flowing alcohol was probably a good indication of that, so it didn’t take a genius to work out that there was something _off_ about all of this. But alas, I cannot gather any further scraps of memory. I know Barbara was mentioned, and there was a lot of talk about ‘business’. And people spoke to me about money, asking me a lot of questions about my job and how it worked, as well as the odd question which felt _distinctly_ shady, though I can’t for the life of me remember why now…

I tried to keep an eye on Tabitha and Butch too, and they certainly did seem a little too close. I thought I might have seen a kiss at one point as well, but my view was obscured by someone else’s head at the time so I cannot be sure. And the rest of the night is nothing but a woozy blur to me now – it has certainly not changed my opinion on alcohol, though I do have to admit, it acted as a wonderful distraction from everything else at the time. But the atmosphere shifted at one point, things became more… tense. I think an argument broke out between someone, I want to say Bitch and Tabitha since it was that pair that I was watching but… Trust me, I am far more irritated by my own ineptitude here than you are. But I know I left then, slipped out of the front door without a single goodbye, and stumbled off down the street away from the madness.

To be quite honest I… do not remember how or when I got home. But I have a very vague recollection of someone assisting me. I could not tell you who though, or even what they did, though I do at least remember that my kind assistant was shorter than me, as I practically stumbled over them at one point. However, I distinctly remember being called ‘friend’. I didn’t have any friends in the area yet, or, well, more accurately, I had recently _escaped_ from the company of the closest thing to friends I had gained so far. And yet that one word felt like such a comfort at the time. It eased the stress I was feeling over the day I had experienced thus far, and it allowed me to sleep peacefully, though again, I have no recollection of actually reaching my bed…

When I awoke the next morning (with a headache that kept me bedbound for several hours longer than I would care to admit), I was forced to telephone into work and let them know that I would not be coming in to the office. I took the opportunity to apologise for the day before as well, trying to spin the lie that _today’s_ illness had come on yesterday, and I had simply been too unwell at the time to even alert my colleagues… I am not sure if they were convinced, as I am not the most experienced liar. It is something I was punished for as a child, and I think such a negative response has rather… _knocked_ the ability out of me…

Once I finally managed to get out of bed and move around the house, I was surprised to find an envelope awaiting me on my kitchen table. Perhaps I had moved the mail when I had first gotten in last night, or perhaps my mysterious helper had done it for me. I spent a moment examining the intricate calligraphy on the envelope, fingers running along the almost silk-like stationary as I slowly turned it over to open the flap, and draw out… an invitation. 

The paper was just as glossy as it’s container, and my eyes scanned the words with an eagerness that surprised even myself, considering how disastrous my last social venture had been. But it would take more than that to dampen my natural curiosity apparently. **“You are cordially invited… an illustrious party… the house of… Oswald Cobblepot… on the, oh that’s today!”** It took a glance to the calendar hung on the far wall to confirm my suspicion was right, but yes, the dates matched. It was only then that I slowed myself down, and re-read the invite in more detail, this time looking to pick up the address of this gala as well. **“But that’s… next door.”**

That did make sense though. The house besides mine, the one I admired on a near daily basis, was often buzzing with activity on a weekend, and today was Friday already. Though it was noisy and bright, the trees that separated our two abodes had always done a good enough job of shielding me from the ruckus that I had never really given the weekend events a second thought. And now I was invited to one?

What did one wear to a house party like this?

Did one bring a gift?

… Did it matter that I still had no idea what my neighbour actually looked like, and I was now invited to his home as a guest? 

… Should I go over there now, say thank you for the invitation, tell him I would be coming? Another glance at the clock answered that one for me – no, thanks to my oversleeping that morning, there was really only a few hours before I would need to be setting off. My soon-to-be-host would be busy preparing for the evening ahead. Well, that was fine, I would just have to make sure I made a good first impression when I arrived, and thank him then. 

I was… actually quite excited, and yet I couldn’t justify such a feeling to myself considering yesterday’s adventures. Nevertheless, I soon found myself moving back to the bedroom with a bounce in my step as I searched through my wardrobe for the appropriate attire. The invitation had not specified black tie (which was a welcome relief as I did not own anything that could pass for that), but I had seen people filtering in and out of the house before. It was certainly formal, _fancy_ one might even say. And I did have that green suit I’d bought on a whim, just in case I found myself invited to some sort of illustrious event now I was living in the big city. Always better to be prepared after all, and the colour had made it cheaper than the other options in the shop. Yes… Yes that would do nicely.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ed attends the party of the famous Cobblepot, to which he was personally invited. It is not at all the sort of thing he is used to, but after finding Leslie in the crowd he settles in to this new atmosphere and begins to enjoy himself. It is during this colourful evening that he finally meets his neighbour, the man of the hour, Mr Oswald Cobblepot himself.

I had settled on not bringing a gift to the party. After at least an hour of trying to work out exactly _what_ one was supposed to bring, coupled with a decent amount of time spent frantically searching my house anyway since I did not have the time to go out and procure something new, I eventually came to the conclusion that one did not need to bring a gift to a large party full of many guests, especially one that appeared to be a generic repeat event that did not revolve around a particular occasion. However… I did ensure I had my second most expensive pen in the inner pocket of my suit jacket so that if necessary I could use it as a sudden gift if I found myself in a position where I needed one (my most expensive pen is my favourite, I would not like to give it away to a stranger…). 

I did not feel particularly comfortable in my dress clothes though. Once I had donned the outfit it became more apparent to me why this particular shade of green had not been selling as well as the others. It was… surprisingly loud for my usual tastes. I am a man of muted colours, of sweaters and soft things, and this suit was almost… gaudy. But it was the only thing in my budget. And… well, strangely enough, a part of me actually _liked_ it. I am not usually the centre of attention, I tend to be ignored or avoided more often than not. But I think a part of me longs to be. I stand in the background wishing to be noticed. So perhaps that part of me was pleased by the attention this strange outfit might attract. Those two clashing fronts didn’t help me feel any more at ease though.

Luckily, I did not have long to consider either of those problems, and with my emergency gift tucked into my bright suit, I was soon heading out of the door to join the crowds beginning to form outside the house of my next-door neighbour. I had brought the invitation with me as well, just in case, though it didn’t exactly have any instructions on where to go or what to do which would have been very useful. I suppose that sort of thing comes naturally to most people. I settled on following a small group of men and women who had clambered out of a car and rushed towards the door a moment before I had arrived on the driveway. They didn’t present an invitation themselves, though I held mine tightly in hand nonetheless. I even offered it out towards the doormen but they ushered me inside without glancing at it.

Once I was through the door though, finally past the threshold and into the party itself, I practically forgot about everything else, and the invitation was subconsciously placed in my pocket while my eyes scanned the room. If I had thought my green-tinted suit would have stood out in a place like this, I was quickly proved wrong, as I watched people dressed in every possible colour and style and fashion imaginable dance in pairs and clusters and even alone in every space of the grand hallway before me, to music seeming to originate from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Though I had longed to see the interior décor of such a beautiful establishment, I found my eyes drawn instead to the trays of champagne flutes bobbing through the crowd, and to the hands reaching out to grab from them, belonging to people of seemingly every different background. Heiresses, film stars, directors, musicians, gangsters, businessmen, reporters, politicians, and more; there didn’t seem to be a single type of person unaccounted for amongst the cacophony of culture that made up the crowd.

Though the standard of wealth in the room was clearly quite high, I certainly wasn’t the only one who seemed to be hopefully clinging to a half-suitable outfit in an attempt to fit in, and several guests seemed to have even sewn up holes or patched over damage in their choice of dress to try and get away with wearing their one item for longer. And yet there did not seem to be an obvious divide in the room. From what I could tell, those people were as involved in the conversation and the dancing as anyone else, despite the way they might have been talked down to in other situations. Perhaps it was the alcohol that neutralised the inequality, or perhaps I was simply being too optimistic about how closely they were standing to their peers. 

Besides these glimpses I had of the people attending, it was a little hard to focus on any other area of the room for long enough to take in the details. Quite frankly the whole thing was a little overwhelming at the time. The music and the voices seemed to blend together into one constant stream of indistinguishable noise, and one could not stand still for more than a few seconds without being bumped into by one of the many members of the huge crowd. It was by such means that I found myself pushed further forwards, joining a flow of people who were moving into an adjoining room, though passing through that door only showed me a new area of much the same atmosphere as the last. The music was slightly quieter here, and more people were seated and talking than dancing together, but somehow it felt just as busy as the last. I continued moving this time, joining streams of other people as I traversed my way around the ground floor of the house, crossing into other packed congregations of people and rooms that contained roulette wheels and card tables as I tried to locate somewhere a little quieter. My search appeared to be in vain though, as no single corner of the house was not buzzing with an indescribable energy, and though I had located the band that was playing in the largest room of the ground floor on my travels, the whole building seemed to have been designed to allow their music to carry throughout every room.

Part of me wanted to go home. I had seen the party, seen the atmosphere, and knew this wasn’t for me, so I should have left immediately to somewhere I felt more at home. I had had a disastrous evening the night before which had contained many of the same features as the party I now stood in, and from the snippets of conversation I had picked up as I had walked by, a few of a similar type of people too. So the most logical thing to do was to leave, now that I had obtained my limited experience and satiated my curiosity.

But my feet wouldn’t turn towards the door. And no matter how much I told myself that was the best option, I couldn’t convince my body to leave. It was like that small voice that had awoken earlier today at the idea of wearing something a little more striking than usual had taken hold of some part of me, and had decided that this was the sort of atmosphere it liked. After all, nothing bad had happened yet, so why was I complaining? Surely I could stay a little longer and find out whether maybe there could be a place for me in a party like this one? Everyone else seemed to be getting stuck in, from celebrities and sports stars to struggling artists and overworked accountants, so what was there to conclusively say that I couldn’t enjoy myself here too?

While I was still torn between the two options of staying or going as the two parts of my brain fought it out, a woman suddenly passed by in front of me, confirming my final decision in the process. **“Leslie?”**

The woman stopped at the sound of her name, and turned towards me, offering a smile as she took the few steps across the room to stand by my side away from the majority of the hustle and bustle around us. **“Ed! It’s good to see you again. What are you doing here? You didn’t seem like the type for this sort of thing?”** She offered me a slightly sheepish smile after that, perhaps worried about offending me with such an assumption, but she wasn’t wrong. 

I fished about in my pocket for the invitation and held it out to her. **“Oh I was invited, so I thought it was only polite to show my face… Although saying that I’m not sure I’ve managed to locate the host so I suppose I haven’t _actually_ succeeded in that yet.”** Well then, I clearly couldn’t leave until after that, could I? Leslie seemed to be staring at the paper that was still hovering in front of her in my outstretched hand, so I couldn’t help but ask, **“Were you invited too?”**

She let out a pretty little laugh at the notion, shaking her head and saying with a clear hint of amusement, **“No Ed. I think you might be the only one here who actually was.”** Inspired by my confused expression, she clarified what she’d meant. **“Most of the people here have just come along because they heard there was a party, not because they were personally invited in the form of a posted invitation like that one. I first came to one of these with an ex-boyfriend of mine. He was a cop, and a lot of his colleagues attended these events at the weekend so he came along to see why one time, and brought me with him. He didn’t really like it though, too much corruption, policemen mixing with criminals out in the open. So he stopped coming, but after we broke up I figured there was nothing stopping me from turning up again for a bit of fun.”** She flashed me an easy smile, one I couldn’t help but mimic in return, though I was still very confused by the news she had given me.

**“So… what makes me special?”**

**“I’ve got no idea, but you said you’ve not met Cobblepot yet, right? Why don’t we go and ask him?”** she replied, holding out a hand to me which I only managed to stare at for a few seconds.

**“Oh, you know who he is?”** I replied, forcing myself to stop staring and actually take the proffered hand, while Leslie slowly moved us away through the crowd. 

She let out another small chuckle, replying, **“Not exactly,”** over her shoulder as she took me towards the stairs and I suddenly realised there was an entire floor of the house I had not yet investigated. **“But I have a vague impression, so with a bit of luck we can find him.”**

The two of us continued to wander through the party together for a while then, chatting about our respective lives as we kept an eye out for someone who looked like they might be the party’s host. She told me about how most of her work was done in the Narrows, and mostly on a volunteer basis too, and that her money came from her late husband, Mario. His wealth had given her the freedom to do anything she wanted to, and she’d chosen to spend her time helping those less fortunate. She was the first bright spark of actual goodness I’d encountered in this city of scandal, and I found myself hanging off her every word, feeling almost guilty for how dull my own life sounded in comparison. But she continued to ask me about it anyway, seemingly interested in the answers I was providing nonetheless. She was either a good actress or a truly kind soul, and it didn’t take long for me to begin enjoying myself as we even paused to dance a little when it became apparent our quest to locate Mr Cobblepot would not be over any time soon.

At one point she had procured a pair of champagne flutes from a passing tray, and despite my hesitation to drink again considering how disastrously yesterday had gone, I found myself unable to say no as the glass was pressed into my hand. It would have been rude to do so, surely, and it was too late to decline when I had reflexively taken the glass on offering anyway. I had intended to be cautious at least, take things far slower than yesterday, and I did… but we stayed in the house, enjoying the music and the conversation for far longer than I had anticipated we would, and I must admit, the bubbles may have gone to my head… again…

I am not certain how many hours passed before we had officially given up our search, and I am also not sure whether it was actually decreed that that is what we had done. At one point we just seemed to stop looking, collapsing into chairs outside on a patio amongst a few other partygoers to watch an array of fireworks shooting off into the sky. I assume they were marking midnight but I had rather lost track of the time by that point. It seemed no-one at the party had ever met Mr Cobblepot themselves either, and in fact, no-one even seemed certain what he looked like. So after our limited leads had eventually run dry, we had simply given in and enjoyed ourselves instead, an accidental duo amongst the kaleidoscopic carnival of Gothamites here at Cobblepot’s party. 

Leslie spotted someone through the crowd, and after offering me a quick explanation about wanting to catch up with an old friend, she had disappeared from sight far too quickly for me to consider following after her. I think she had said something about coming back to find me again soon but…

**“Having a good time, friend?”**

The voice had come from the man I had accidentally seated myself besides, and I instinctively went to move my chair away a little in case my proximity had been an issue. It was only after that action that I actually realised what had been said, and that it was a question that would require an answer. **“Oh yes the whole thing’s incredible!”** I frowned slightly at my own sudden enthusiasm, but it had earned a chuckle from my new companion.

**“Excellent. How are you finding the music? And I see you’ve sampled the beverages too?”**

I glanced down at the glass in my hand, feeling myself blush slightly at the fact it was empty. I had said to myself that I wouldn’t be drinking much after all… **“Yes, both excellent, I’m sure,”** I replied, my own inexperience showing through in the waver in my voice. This felt like a quiz all of a sudden, like someone was checking whether I really did indeed deserve to be here when parties were clearly not my forte. 

My drop in comfort level was noticed though apparently, as the other man sat up a little at the change in my tone. **“Everything alright?”**

**“Oh yes, peachy!”** I replied too quickly, closing my eyes in an elongated blink of embarrassment as I heard my own voice aloud. Perhaps it was because I was suddenly alone again, trusted in a foreign social encounter without Leslie by my side to keep me in check and confirm I was acting appropriately for an event of this variety. Or perhaps it was because there was something oddly familiar about the voice of this man, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was – and I did always hate mysteries that I couldn’t solve. Either way, I soon found myself scrambling for a topic change before I could be questioned on what I’d just said. **“The only odd thing though, is I still haven’t managed to find Mr Cobblepot.”** I fished the invitation out of my pocket again, the card now creased and bent from how many times I had repeated that action over the night. My words continued to come out in a stream of consciousness as I attempted to babble my way out of trouble… thank you champagne… **“No-one seems to have met him though, but I keep hearing all these wonderful stories about him being related to royalty, not to mention some pretty exciting scandals if they’re true. I live just next door, he sent me an invitation, though seems I’m the only one to have gotten one. I wanted to say thank you but I’m starting to think he might not even exist.”** I let out a little clip of laughter at my own attempt at a joke, though could feel myself blushing immediately afterwards. 

**“Oh not at all, you are very welcome.”** I blinked across at my new companion for a moment, the pieces slotting together in the same moment that the man offered out a hand and added, **“I’m afraid I haven’t been a very good host, friend. You see, I’m Cobblepot.”**

The world could have stopped in that moment as I battled between being _mortified_ not to have realised who my companion was despite having no reason to have recognised him, and feeling almost awed by his presence. This was the man I had heard so many stories about this evening, and who I had longed to meet in person since the moment I’d laid eyes on his illustrious home. This was the man I had spent hours seeking out to offer a heartfelt thank you for the opportunity to be included in a party I would never normally had stepped foot in, but which I had most certainly enjoyed so far despite how thoroughly past my comfort zone I now was. This man with eyes that contained the entire world inside of them, this man whose smile was so rare and powerful I could not quite draw my eyes away from it. This man had the entire world at his feet and yet in that moment still managed to concentrate on me with an irresistible prejudice in my favour. From just this flash of lips and teeth I felt as though I was understood in the way I had always longed for someone to understand me, believed in in a way no-one ever had before.

And quite frankly I was speechless.

Cobblepot frowned a moment later though as he dropped the hand I had completely ignored, and I almost let out a noise of complaint at the fact the smile I was so drawn in by had vanished from view. But that shift at least led me back to my senses enough to attempt a response. **”Oh.”** … Well it was a start.

**“Is there any way I can make it up to you, Mr… _Nygma_ , isn’t it?”** the man offered, turning his chair to face mine a little more now we were officially conversing.

**“Oh.”** My mind was stalled, and hadn’t quite managed to kick back into action again before his question had already been spoken. So I was already blushing as I made an effort to correct my answer. **“No, thank you sir, everything is, interesting.”** I visibly winced at the word I had chosen, but again, my companion did little more than chuckle.

He did stand from his chair a moment later though, and I felt a crash of guilt at how I must have clearly made him uncomfortable enough that he would want to leave. **“I understand this atmosphere can be quite overwhelming at first. I myself prefer to observe it rather than participate most of the time. As such, I ensure there are always some quieter spaces in this house still, if you would like to accompany me to one of those?”** He made a move as though to offer out a hand towards me, though it dropped to his side too quickly for me to be certain of the intent of the gesture. 

**“Yes,”** I heard my voice say as I also got to my feet, neither actions feeling entirely voluntary as though I was simply being dragged along by the sheer force of this man’s charisma. **“That would be… if you don’t mind of course…”** I had already been singled out once by way of the invitation still clutched in my hand, so this shouldn’t have felt so odd to me. And yet I was not used to being ‘special’ in any aspect of my life. I was background noise, I was a face in a crowd, and if for some reason someone did single me out it was usually not because of the purest of intentions – my latest encounter with Butch sprang to mind at that particular train of thought. So perhaps my hesitance was caution… but as I am sure you are aware by now, my curiosity can override any other instinct when it is sufficiently sparked.

The pair of us slipped away through the crowd and I had all but forgotten about Leslie in the drama of the moment. She had friends at the party though, she would be fine, and it didn’t occur to me that she may be concerned about my sudden absence. Presumably she would just think I had gone home anyway. Regardless, I was hooked on Cobblepot’s voice as we slowly traversed his household, the other man offering me snippets of stories about every unusual item we passed, dropping hints of information about his own life into the mix that I was lapping up like a kitten with her milk. He was fascinating, and now that I was walking beside him I found myself amazed that it had took me so long to pick him out from amongst the crowd. He seemed to radiate light like a fallen star, so different from the now bland and boring guests of his abode, drowning out their colours with a spectrum of his own. And every time he glanced back towards me with that dazzling smile I found myself catching my breath like the expression had physically reached out and held me in an embrace far warmer than even a mother could offer. 

It was likely just the champagne. I had been complaining about its effects before this of course. That was why I had embarrassed myself in the conversation too, and now that I was up and moving too quickly, it was no surprise I was feeling so light headed. Clearly my mind had simply latched on to a distraction in the shape of this man, and my strange fixation on him was some primal instinct buried deep within to stay near to someone who I believed would keep me safe despite my intoxication. I felt no need to question my thoughts any further than that, happy with my conclusion, and as I was led into a library of all places, I was soon further distracted from worrying about how odd they may otherwise have sounded. The door was shut behind us, the music suddenly almost silencing as Cobblepot moved over to a large leather reading chair and settled himself down. I myself was too preoccupied with the seemingly never-ending bookshelves I was now surrounded by to realise I was probably supposed to take a seat as well, and had found myself moving straight over to the nearest one just to run my fingers along the hundreds of spines.

**“I thought you might enjoy this room,”** the man behind me said, and I did at least mange to glance back at him and smile gratefully, not at all thinking to question how he would know something like that. **“You had so many books in your house after all, I thought it couldn’t just be a coincidence.”**

My fingers stopped in their perusal of the selection of works on offer here to turn back with a frown at those words. **“… You were in my house?”**

I was blinked at for a few moments like I had said something entirely surprising to my companion. **“… Yes? … Last night? You were admittedly quite, shall we say, inebriated, so I suppose it should not be a surprise if things are not all that clear to you today… How else did you think the invitation arrived in your kitchen?”**

My eyes widened in shock at this news, and I even stumbled back a little as though I had been physically unbalanced by it. **“Oh my goodness. That was you.”** It wasn’t a question because yes, now that suggestion had been put forwards, the night in question was becoming a little clearer, and it was easy to see that my mysterious and yet chivalrous assistant had indeed been the man who was now sat in front of me with a thoroughly amused glint in his eye. **“I am… so sorry, I normally don’t drink I don’t know what came over me, especially since, obviously, one should not be drinking at all, though I suppose considering the beverages at this party that may not be of a concern to you but still, my behaviour-”**

**“There is nothing to apologise for friend, it is quite alright.”** I was relieved when I was cut off from my rambling as it may not have had an end if I had been left to my own devices with it. **“No harm was done, and you were quite entertaining.”** He offered a sympathetic smile as my blush dialled up another notch in response. **“I do not mean in that way. We talked a little, and you had such fascinating stories. I rather hoped we could talk more in fact, hence the invitation. I feared you may not want to come if it was a more personal event since we do not even really know each other, but there is always opportunity for conversation at a party anyway.”**

There was a silence between us then that I was not sure how to fill, and the easy confidence the other man had been emanating seemed to falter as it drew on. When he finally spoke again, there was a shift to his voice that I could not recognise. **“You see, you mentioned a Barbara Kean, just in passing, or I suppose it is Barbara Gilzean now. And I knew this woman, a very long time ago, and I would be interested in finding out more about her and her life and how things have changed for her since we knew each other. Perhaps you could reintroduce us, friend?”**

Having been given something useful I could do in order to repay this man for his generosity, I instantly found myself relaxing, the smile returning to my face and causing Cobblepot to mirror his own radiant one back at me. **“Of course, anything for you.”** I perhaps did not hear quite how I had phrased that, too relieved in the moment to consider my words, but either way I was finally content to sit beside my new friend… or was it too soon to call him that?

We talked for hours after that, though I honestly could net tell you what about. Everything and nothing all at once. I felt like I had learned everything there was to know about him and yet still barely scratched the surface of who he was. And he had drawn out more of myself than I ever expected to share with someone, never mind a near stranger. I don’t know what time I left his home, or even the manner in which our conversation came to an end, but I do remember the building being eerily quiet as I was led back to the front door. He offered to walk me the few steps across to my own little house, but instead we ended up talking a little while longer on his doorstep before my yawning eventually had him shooing me away entirely. I would have expected the champagne to have worn off by that point in the night, but I suppose my body was still not used to its effects, because I found myself thinking of those eyes and that smile as I finally slid into my own bed to the sound of birds tweeting the morning outside. 

Champagne must be stronger than I’d given it credit for. Why else would I still be thinking of him when I woke up the next morning as well?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the party, Edward's wish to spend more time with his new friend is soon answered, as he is invited out to lunch with Oswald Cobblepot. After being introduced to a strange business associate of Oswald's, their own meeting is cut short, and Ed ends up bumping into Leslie again a little later who has a strange request to make of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay on this chapter - I've been aiming to get a new one up every fortnight or so but this one was a lot later due to holidays and broken laptops and all sorts of things! I am busy again next weekend but even so, I am aiming to get back to my previous writing schedule from now on where possible. Also just a note to remember that Ed is not the most reliable of narrators in this story, as he may be missing details that others are picking up on, or else making his own facts up out of nowhere. But that's all I'll say for now ^_^.

Somehow the next few days felt wholly… bland. Now that I had seen the way the world could shine, the way one solitary _person_ could shine, I could see the absence of that light everywhere I looked. Everything was grey and dull and quiet and boring, and I longed for an excuse to find myself in the company of Mr Cobblepot once again. I had never really developed more than a handful of close friends in my life, and even then, my relationships with them had been surface level at best. Leslie was wonderful and I enjoyed my conversations with her too, but they did not reach the depths that Cobblepot could get to with only a few cursory words. I imagined this to be what true friendship felt like, and thought perhaps I had simply missed it all these years and had finally met someone with which my soul truly connected. Was this how everyone else felt when they socialised with their friends and shared intimate moments with them, to which I myself had simply never been invited? In which case they were lucky, as I was entirely jealous of the fact I could have been made this singularly happy by one person years ago if I had simply put a little more effort into being sociable.

Then again, perhaps it wasn’t so usual. While I am sure others have shared stronger friendships than I, when most lay eyes on their friends they do not do so with such a strength of devotion as I did after just one night with this man. So perhaps this particular relationship was special for more than just my lack of experience. Or perhaps a mix of both, and perhaps because of that I was simply struggling to comprehend it. Whatever the case, my eyes lit up and my heart used its next beat to slam against my ribcage just at the sight through my living room window of Mr Cobblepot walking down my garden path towards my front door. Even as he knocked there it took me a moment to get up to answer it, too shocked by the fact that he was here and too excited at the prospect of why to do anything more than to stare into the moment that was about to unfold. 

When I did reach the door and threw it back to witness the smile forming on my neighbour’s face, I felt the tension in my muscles relaxing, like they’d finally received a hit of the drug they’d been craving since the moment we’d parted. **“Ah, Mr Nygma, I hope I’m not intruding.”**

**“Oh no, not at all sir,”** I replied honestly, because my plans for the day had involved little more than sitting in the garden and reading which could happily be done on any other day. 

My term of address earned a chuckle though. **“No need for the formalities friend, you can just call me Oswald. I was wondering if you’d like to join me for lunch today. You told me the other day that you were yet to see very much of our fine city – I thought perhaps I could show you a few of my favourite spots, and give you a proper Gotham education; what do you say?”**

He seemed to ooze confidence from every pore, so that my mind was immediately convinced that this was a wonderful idea without hesitating to consider it at all. A few moments later I had agreed and collected my coat, and was climbing into the passenger seat of the extravagant car he had parked at the end of the road, almost nervous to touch the gleaming metal lest my fingerprints left unappealing smudges and tainted its perfection. But then we were off, and within moments the conversation was flowing as easily as it had the night before.

The main difference this time though was that the focus had shifted to my companion. Having extracted every ounce of information about my own relatively boring life at the party, we turned to talking about him instead, and the stories of his own years were baffling in their detail. I consider myself to have an excellent memory and even I cannot recount them fully to you now, though I do remember that he had the odd photo prepared as evidence at various points of his tale telling, and he would draw one out from the inside jacket of his pocket and hand it to me while he continued. He told me about awards he had won, people he had met, achievements and victories and an infinite number of amazing feats. But now that I look back, perhaps the reason I don’t remember the exact details of what he had told me was because I wasn’t truly listening. Because between taking in the scenery he was pointing out to me as we passed, tasting the summer air as it carried scents of cut grass and blossoming flowers shifting into steel and coal as we slowly approached the city itself, and listening to the sweet tones of the voice that was practically serenading me with its stories, it was hard to concentrate on actual individual words. All I know is his life was fascinating and almost unfathomably full as well. 

We pulled up outside a little restaurant he knew called ‘The Iceberg Lounge’, and as we walked towards the door together he told me about how he partially owned the place, and how it was an excellent place for business meetings and about how I might find his work interesting if I’d like to sit down and talk about it for a little while. But before we could delve too deeply into this potential new area of conversation, his eyes had landed on a pale, bald man at the back of the room, and we were diverted towards this new distraction instead. **“Ah, of course! Allow me to introduce you to an associate of mine,”** Cobblepot said loudly as he led me across the room towards the man in question, while I followed somewhat timidly behind him. **“Edward Nygma, this is Victor Zsasz.”**

The bald man smiled, his eyes a little too wide as his fingers wiggled at me in a strange wave. **“Hello.”** I had made a small movement to hold out my hand towards him to shake, but I abandoned it swiftly as I realised that was not what was being offered here. I wasn’t quite sure whether to wave back… so I ended up giving him a sheepish smile in return, glancing back to Cobblepot as my metaphorical safety net as I wondered what to do next here. **“Are you the one Ozzie wants to work with us then?”**

**“I, erm, I’m not sure. What is it you need?”**

**“You’re a money guy right, someone who knows how to work the books, someone who can hide a little extra inco-”**

A sudden burst of nervous laughter cut our new companion off mid-sentence as Cobblepot put an arm around my shoulders and carefully steered me away to a table set for two. **“Perhaps later Zsasz, I don’t think this is the right time to be talking business, we’re out for a casual lunch. Maybe next time.”** I didn’t want to point out to my friend that it had been he himself who had brought up the prospect of discussing work here today – nor did I decide to query what the end of that sentence would have been despite my eagerness to do so. For once, I was more curious by the man as a whole than by this snippet of information that had been stolen from me, so I was quite happy simply focusing back on Cobblepot and forgetting about the near-offer that had been quickly retracted away from me.

Lunch was pleasant enough, though my food went cold before I had the opportunity to eat it, mostly due to how many times I had left my fork hovering in front of my mouth while I engaged in fascinating dialogues with my new friend. But all good things must come to an end, and it wasn’t long before this Zsasz character came over to our table and whispered something in the ear of my dining partner which sadly signalled the end of our time together. Cobblepot profusely apologised for having to cut the meal short and offered to drop me off anywhere in Gotham, but I told him not to worry and set off down the street myself a little while later, keen to explore this new corner of the city I had not yet been to.

But it seems the world is in fact a frightfully small place, as I had not been wandering for more than an hour or so before I saw a surprisingly familiar face. A man who believed in fate would have to question why it was that I managed to bump into Miss Leslie Thompkins as often as I did. But as luck would have it, she rushed straight into explaining the answer to me (for this occurrence at least) as soon as she had approached.

**“Edward, there you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Cobblepot said you’d walked in this direction but Gotham is so big I thought I might never find you again.”** Her hands came to rest against my elbows in a way that felt like she was holding me still to examine me but which I am certain was supposed to be a friendly gesture of greeting. **“So tell me, how was your lunch today?”**

Despite the fact she had given me all the necessary information in that introduction, it still took me a moment to put the pieces together. **“Oh, have you just seen Mr Cobblepot too? I thought he had a work meeting.”** My heart sank even as I spoke, wondering whether that had all been a lie to cut our meeting short because I hadn’t been sufficiently entertaining company…

My gaze was already dropping to the floor as Leslie answered me. **“Oh he did, but the topic in question had implications for The Narrows so I was there as well to learn the outcome as quickly as possible,”** she said with a smile, and waved a hand slightly with an air of nonchalance as though I needn’t worry myself with the details. **“But I spoke with him afterwards and he was so worried he’d upset you by cutting your meal short that I said I would come and find you to make sure you were alright. So how was it, how was your little lunch date?”**

There was a strange glint in her eye that didn’t seem to match the rest of her easy and calm demeanour, giving her the impression of a hawk watching a mouse in the field below it, waiting for it to make a mistake and move to clearer ground. It was quite distracting, especially because I couldn’t at all figure out what it was she was looking for in my answer as I stumbled out a response. **“Oh it was very pleasant, he’s a remarkable man. You can tell him not to worry about upsetting me – I understand how busy his life must be and I feel honoured just to steal away an hour of it.”**

There was a silence as Leslie continued to look me over, her eyes darting across my expression so much that I was beginning to feel uncomfortable under her gaze. But a moment later she was smiling, positively beaming in fact, so whatever I had said must have somehow been what she was waiting for. **“Oh excellent, I’m so glad you enjoyed yourself!”** she replied with a seemingly unnecessary abundance of enthusiasm, and my mind continued to mull over this very strange interaction I seemed to be a part of. If Cobblepot had indeed been the one to send her here, was it _him_ who was searching for something in my answers, rather than Leslie herself? So then, what? Perhaps he was looking to see if I had mentioned the strange interaction with Zsasz? I had not, and Leslie seemed pleased now, so had I now passed that test? **“Anyway, he had a request to ask of you that he wanted me to pass along too, something I might be able to help you out with as well.”**

That suggestion had managed to cut me off from my musings with ease, and I let the worry drop from my expression in an instant to allow an almost excited eagerness to take his place. **“Of course, anything I can do to help him!”** Her grin somehow split wider, though I had not thought it possible that it could, and she seemed like she may clap her hands with joy though for the life of me I could not fathom why. 

**“Great! Let me explain then. He said he’d mentioned to you that he knew Barbara when the two of you were talking at the party. It turns out he knew her years ago, before she’d ever met Butch, and that they were good friends when they were both starting out in Gotham. But they ended up apart, and the last time they’ve even communicated with each other was on the eve of her wedding, when he’d sent her a letter that had her in floods of tears, though she burned it before anyone could see what it had said. It sounds like Cobblepot would like to see her again and make amends for whatever it was that happened between them. He’d like your help to do that since Barbara’s your cousin, and thought the two of you could spend some time together to plan that out. What do you think Ed; would you want to help him with that?”** One eyebrow had raised as she’d spoken her question at the end, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d missed some double meaning in her words. So before I rushed into my inevitable agreement, I took a second to turn over her story again in my head and try to work out what it was that I’d missed.

Old friends who’d lost touch… before she’d known Butch… upsetting her on the eve of her wedding… Oh, was that it…? Had he thought that through correctly? Did Cobblepot… had he _loved_ Barbara? Was that what I was getting myself involved with here, trying to reunite an old pair of lovers to see if a spark was still present? Was this what had Leslie in such a strangely excitable mood today? Barbara was her friend after all, and she had been so sad to recount the details of her husband’s unfaithfulness: did she think this was a good thing then, to level the score between them and to bring her friend some happiness of her own? 

I was well aware that I could be entirely wrong here but the pieces did seem to fit. Besides, even if I was completely off, I would be helping Cobblepot get what he wanted, and that still shone as the brightest motivation in my mind. **“I would be happy to help him, of course, please, do tell him as soon as you see him that I am at his very beck and call for such a duty!”** Perhaps my eagerness _was_ starting to run away with me a little now… **“I will start thinking about the best way to proceed with this task at once.”**

**“That’s great, I knew you’d put that wonderful mind of yours to good use,”** Leslie replied with a quick squeeze of my shoulder, and I blushed brightly enough in response that I could soon feel the heat of it radiating from my cheeks. No-one ever complimented my mind like that. Well now I had to do it of course, even more so. It would mean spending time with the both of them after all, Cobblepot and Leslie herself, as we worked together on this plan. I would be part of a team for once, a team who wanted me there (even if it was for the personal connection to Barbara, a fact I wasn’t able to dismiss entirely despite how much I hoped it wasn’t the only reason…). 

I had spent years alone before I had moved to Gotham, and yet now, within the first few months of my life here, I had developed not only a close friend in Leslie, but a budding friendship in Cobblepot as well. Add to that this new project to throw myself into, and it all truly proved that I should have moved to the big city years ago to pursue this happiness I was already inches away from reaching.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On his way back from his day out with Leslie, Edward bumps into his neighbour who seems keen to get to work on the reunion that Leslie had briefed him about earlier that day. However, he doesn't seem to be in too much of a rush to actually formulate a plan...

Though I spent the rest of the day wandering through the city with Leslie, we didn’t really talk about this strange new plan again, and by the time we parted ways it had practically slipped my mind. It wasn’t until I was almost back at my own house that I was reminded of what I had agreed to. Though my eyes would have found their way to Cobblepot’s house anyway as they so naturally did every time I passed it, they were drawn there far faster this evening by the light emanating from every window. The silence was eerie in contrast, the house as dazzling as it was on any party night but somehow feeling almost ghostly without the usual cacophony of laughter and music to accompany it. I had halted at the bottom of the path as I often did, and was slowly mulling over why it all felt so strange, when I heard a now familiar voice call my name.

**“Ah, Edward, I was hoping I would catch you!”** Despite the significant length of the road down from Cobblepot’s house, my neighbour was already only a few feet away when he called out to me. Perhaps he had only just arrived home too, or perhaps he had been waiting for someone (though despite the words that were spoken in my direction, I had a hard time believing that someone could be me). I smiled at the other man as he approached me and offered further greetings. **“Did Leslie find you? I know she was going to look for you. Did the, ah, two of you have a good day together?”**

There was something different about his manner today. There was the slightest jump to his voice, and his hands were moving a little too much as he clasped them in front of him, giving him a far more jittery appearance than I was used to seeing from such a suave and confident host. It had the effect of delaying my answer as I worked to analyse such an occurrence at the same time as absorbing his question. **“Yes, she showed me around some of her favourite places in the city; I really appreciated it.”**

His smile was almost sad as he replied, **“I was hoping I would have been able to do that for you but… maybe next time.”** He seemed to brush away his melancholy very quickly after that though, as it seemed a more important thought took hold of him, and his almost nervous energy seemed to return. His smile flashed wide again, and he stood as tall as he could for a man of his stature, before continuing with, **“Did Miss Thompkins by any chance manage to pass on a small request of mine to you?”**

I was actually in the process of answering, my mouth half open with a word already dancing on the edge of my tongue, when he suddenly spoke again, a frantic energy speeding his voice into the air before mine had a chance of competing. **“Because before you answer friend, there are some things I think you ought to consider. You have of course already seen my house and my car, but my money stretches far further than that, and of course, what’s mine is yours in a manner of speaking. The restaurant you ate in today is partly under my ownership of course, as I told you, and I want you to know I have many more acquisitions currently in progress to expand what one could even call the Cobblepot Empire if I may be so bold as to do so. I don’t believe you’ve seen the full extent of my house yet either: did you see the grounds, the swimming pool? I don’t just own one car either, I have many. My fortune is vast, friend, and I think this is an important thing to take into consideration for the decision you are about to make, so before you answer rashly I invite you to consider how much I could offer you if you were to grant me your assistance in just this smallest of matters.”** His words came so fast I had no opportunity to interrupt him, and it wasn’t until he took a breath after this final sentence that I was able to worm my way back into this currently one-sided conversation.

**“Oswald,”** I said quickly, to dissuade him from continuing to talk because I wasn’t sure when my next opportunity to answer might come up. He did halt his torrent of speech at that point, clasping his hands a little tighter in front of him and putting on an even larger smile, which, for the first time, seemed a little forced. **“Your, um… offers, are very generous.”** That’s how I was choosing to interpret them: as offers and not simply as bragging or as a suggestion that he could _buy_ my services in any way… **“But you needn’t worry about such things. I _want_ to help you. Leslie told me your story and I think it’s wonderful that you want to give love a chance. Besides, I truly want to pay you back for how much of a good friend you’ve been to me in the brief time I have known you. If this is how I can help, then I would be glad to.”**

One could almost see the stress evaporate from Cobblepot as I spoke, and before I could protest or even react, he had rushed forward to shake my hand, and was soon placing his palm against the centre of my back to direct me towards his home. **“Oh this is wonderful news! I knew I could count on you Edward. Now, well, there is so much we can do, I thought perhaps if you were not too tired we could have dinner? We can go out again, or I can arrange for the finest cuisine of Gotham to be brought right to my doorstep, just for you. How does that sound?”**

**“That does sound wonderful Mr Cob- Oswald.”** It was proving quite difficult to break out of that particular habit of referring to a man who my mind had deemed to be by far my superior by a more formal title than simply his forename. I found myself slipping back to it every now and again, every time that I forgot I was actually friends with this man, and not simply staring up at him in awe from a distance. **“Will Leslie be joining us?”**

That caused my companion to halt in his tracks, and he frowned at me like he hadn’t quite understood the words I had spoken. **“No of course not, it’s just the two of us. Why do you ask?”**

I paused for a moment, wondering what had been so unclear in what I had said, and took the opportunity to gather my thoughts carefully before I explained. **“Well we’ll be planning how to get you and Barbara to see each other again, won’t we? Leslie knows Barbara even better than I do. I was assuming that’s why she passed on the message to me, since she said she could help too when she told me about it. Is that not the case?”**

The confusion slowly seemed to lift from Cobblepot’s face and I could have sworn I caught a flash of anger before his expression settled into a smile again. **“Ah. Yes. Of course. Well unfortunately not tonight no, it’ll just be the two of us. Leslie was busy so she wasn’t able to come tonight but she’ll join us next time. I do hope that’s still alright though, friend?”**

I think later it did occur to me how odd it was that Cobblepot now seemed to know Leslie was busy and couldn’t be with us, when a moment earlier he had sounded ignorant of her entire involvement, and yet I know I certainly didn’t question it at the time. It was hard to doubt anything he said to me when I was staring at that smile though, so I am sure I simply nodded and let myself be led up to his illustrious home without complaint.

It was not a bad decision of course; the evening we shared together was wonderful. Cobblepot lived up to his word and I was dazzled by a wide array of foods, most of which I had never even seen before. It seemed like we spent hours sampling from every possible menu, and I was even handfed oysters by my new friend at one point. It proved, in fact, to be impossible to concentrate at all on the plan we were meant to be forming, and instead I found myself lost in more stories of his past. There was wine as well, paired with each dish, and quite a lot of it too. So much of it in fact, that my usually reserved nature seemed to melt away more so than it had done already in the company of this man who seemed to be able to open me up like a book with just a few words. We were alone in the house after all, and after eating so much we both retired to one of the large plush couches. As I said, my inhibitions were slightly lowered, and I can’t remember if I tripped or if it was intentional, but I remember for at least some of the night, we were sitting side by side myself slouched on the sofa, and Cobblepot’s arms around my shoulders…

It was so comfortable that I think I drifted off to sleep for a little while, and it was in the middle of a half-formed dream that I remembered why I had even been visiting the man in the first place. My eyelids flickered open to see Cobblepot gazing down at me, and I lost any semblance of speech again as I smiled up at him. But once my senses returned fully, I sat myself up straight again and dislodged the arm that had been holding me close in my sleep – an instance that I did not think to question at the time, too cosy in the moment to worry about any implications. **“Oh Oswald, I’m sorry, you wanted my help with your problem and we haven’t talked about it once!”** I tried to convey my apology as clearly as I could in my tone, but even so, the other man was already waving a dismissive hand as he sat himself up straighter on the sofa, a blush touching the peaks of his cheeks as he answered me.

**“Not to worry friend, sometimes plans change, and tonight has been enjoyable anyway, has it not?”** He glanced at the small space between us on the sofa and the red already tinting his face seemed to brighten. **“I’m sorry this chair is frightfully small for the two of us, I don’t know why I didn’t suggest something larger… Unless, of course, you don’t mind the proximity…?”**

As rude as it likely was, I have to admit I completely ignored his questions, too keen to prove my worth to him by solving the problem I had been invited here to address. **“Perhaps this is a good thing, perhaps we _shouldn’t_ be overthinking this. I would imagine she would be just as eager to see you if she knew what we were planning.”** My words may have sounded confident but in all honesty, I did not find Barbara to be at all predictable so I could have very easily been wrong about that… **“So we would likely be in the best position if we just kept it simple. Perhaps I can just invite her to my house and you can be there when she arrives?”** I was smiling eagerly as I looked back to the other man, whose hand seemed to have slowly reached across into the space between us as I’d been talking, though I wasn’t quite certain why.

There was a strange sort of sadness in his eyes as he replied, but I couldn’t place it at all. Was my plan not good enough…? **“That sounds perfect Edward, thank you.”** It seemed to be then? So perhaps I was reading too much into things… Expressions were never my forte anyway; I tended to miss even obvious ones when I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to them. 

I stood up quickly at that confirmation, gathering my jacket that I did not remember taking off earlier, and brushing myself down to remove any lingering crumbs from our evening of banqueting. **“Excellent, I shall go and write to her immediately!”** Cobblepot did not stand right away, though I could have sworn I heard him sigh before he finally got to his feet to walk me to the door. **“Is… everything alright Oswald?”** My curiosity wouldn’t let me leave while my friend was so subdued. Had I caused this?

**“Of course, everything is fine, not to worry friend.”** He paused for a moment, something intense and eager in his eyes as they turned to meet mine again. **“Only, this was an enjoyable evening for you, was it not?”**

I beamed widely as I stepped across the threshold of his front door, turning back to nod in answer to his question. **“Oh yes wonderful, thank you so much Oswald.”**

**“And so, by that logic, by that reasoning… would you like to do it again some time?”**

For a brief second, I frowned at his question, and even before I could voice the point I was confused over, Cobblepot’s eyes seemed to widen slightly in… surprise? Fear? … Just a cold breeze, was I reading too much into it again? **“Would I like to… plan how to get you and Barbara together… again?”**

My friend’s shoulders dropped slightly in what looked like relief, as a smile rushed across his face, his hands taking me just below the shoulders as he answered me. **“Ah, yes, of course, that’s what I meant. And yes, I don’t imagine this will be the only time I will need to see her, and I would appreciate your assistance next time as well.”** His hands squeezed my arms slightly before they dropped awkwardly to his side.

**“Yes that would be lovely, but Oswald, I will need to find a way to repay you for all of this, all of these ways you keep treating me.”** I was already beginning to feel guilty about not contributing to the cost of our evening, but Cobblepot had been very insistent that I not.

Even now, he waved my concerns away with a shake of his head. **“You will do nothing of the sort. But thank you Edward, I… enjoyed your company.”**

We parted ways again, the same ache gripping my heart as I walked down the long path from his doorway to the road that had taken it each other time I had left my friend so far. This time it was easy to redirect that feeling into action though, as I willed myself back towards my own house at double my usual pace, eager to write the letter and send it off to set this sudden and perhaps overly simple plan into action.

The meeting was arranged for only a few days later, Barbara confirming my invitation almost immediately and Cobblepot doing the same when I relayed the information back to him. It was strange really, I had never had two people seemingly so eager to meet with me before, and now suddenly here I was, popular for the first time, only to direct my two friends together in the end anyway… It was decided that Cobblepot would come to my house that morning and spend the day with me to prepare, even though I assured him very little would need to be done – he was quite insistent on the matter so it seemed easier to go along with him than to argue. Barbara would come for a late lunch, and once the two were reunited I would slip out to give them some privacy – although again, Cobblepot was quite firm about my staying with them the whole time, though I did eventually win that particular point by explaining how important some alone time would be for them to rekindle their relationship. 

Cobblepot appeared at my door bright and early that morning, and after assisting me in laying out a few snacks and preparing the food my guest and his date would share later in the day, we inevitably ran out of things that needed to be done… which I had of course told him we would do. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by this fact though, and we soon settled on one of my sofas and chatted about inane things while we picked at the snacks on the table. It almost felt like we were testing out the date before it occurred, and I even told him this with a light laugh because the parallel was very amusing to me.

But I had never been very good at jokes. Riddles, word play, all that sort of thing I am a self-proclaimed master of, but humour often escapes me. So yet again I must have phrased this particular slice of amusement incorrectly, because my friend blushed a deep red and almost clammed up entirely. Our conversation ran dry, and in fact he moved to stand over by my fireplace and began examining the trinkets there in favour of sharing my company.

I could only really put it down to nerves. I had reminded him of what was coming, very soon of course, so I had likely accidentally frightened him. I suppose that does not make me a very good friend…

The atmosphere was still heavy with tension when there was a knock on my front door, and just moments before that, Cobblepot had turned back to me and suggested we abort the plan entirely. The distraction of the new arrival was enough to tear my attention away from the other man at the most critical moment apparently, because while I went to greet my visitor (who was of course Barbara) and invite her into the room, Cobblepot slipped out of the back entrance. 

**“So what’s the big deal then Eddie?”** Barbara asked as she walked past me into the room, throwing her coat and gloves down on a nearby chair before dropping onto the sofa my friend had only recently vacated. **“You sounded so urgent in your letter, so… _feisty_.”**

I was still staring blankly at the space where Cobblepot had once been standing, unsure of how to proceed now without him, when I finally thought to look back at Barbara. **“I’m sorry, what?”**

She rolled her eyes at me and plastered a fake smile over her face before continuing. **“Why did you invite me over here Ed?”**

I was part way through stuttering out some sort of excuse when there was suddenly a second knock on the door, and I jumped at the opportunity to buy myself some time by answering it. Of course, when I opened the door to unveil Cobblepot standing on the other side of it, an apologetic smile on his lips before he strode past me into the living room, I was very pleased to realise I would not need to come up with an excuse at all.

Hesitantly following my friend back into the living room, I saw that Barbara had now stood, and was facing Cobblepot with an unreadable expression on her face. **“Ozzie…”**

**“Miss Kean,”** my friend responded coolly, **“Or should I say, Mrs Gilzean.”**

I am obviously no expert on love, but something did not seem quite right to me in this reunion… But perhaps my eavesdropping was entirely the problem, and I had of course promised to leave them to it when arranging this meeting in the first place. So while an awkward silence filled the air between the two ex-lovebirds, I slipped back out of the front door and closed it quietly behind me, pushing my hands into my pockets and wandering off up the street to take in this bright sunny day we were having. There were rain clouds not too far in the distance but they seemed to be moving away from me, further evidenced by the dampness of the floor around me. So it seemed I would be able to leave them to it for at least a few hours.

I was of course, thrilled to be helping my friend with such an important task but, I have to admit, I was the slightest bit jealous of Barbara Gilzean… for being able to spend so much time in Cobblepot’s company, of course… Of course…


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Oswald and Barbara have reunited, Edward continues to assist his friend with his newly formed love life, finally learning the truth about his past along the way. Eventually however, Butch enters the picture - has he found out about what has been going on behind his back?

I’m not sure I could tell you how their reunion went. I kept myself busy like I had promised to do, wandering the streets of the neighbourhood in circles for a few hours before eventually heading back to my home to check in on the two lovebirds. I could hear their voices as I approached the front door, but the very moment I opened it, they immediately halted their conversation and went silent instead. I tried to apologise for interrupting them but I was met with rushed explanations about how they were actually both just leaving. Cobblepot thanked me for my help, and Barbara stroked my face and made me promise I would drop by her house some time, and with that the pair of them both left my house to go off on their separate ways. Cobblepot paused once at the end of the path to turn around and bid me goodbye again, before leaving me alone and thoroughly confused.

I have never been particularly skilled at reading the atmosphere of a room – for all my considerable genius in academic subjects, _people_ have always had a way of remaining very elusive to me. There had been no shouting, and both members of the rendezvous had seemed at peace when they had left, so I can assume that they parted on good terms. But I would not be able to identify a crackle of chemistry in the air whether it was there or not, so I cannot report back on the actual action of reigniting an old flame. The only sign I received that the afternoon had indeed been a success, was a further invitation from Cobblepot to meet him at his house to discuss the next step of our plan.

My life proceeded in this way for quite some time. I would meet with Cobblepot in his home or in Gotham itself, and we would discuss ways that he could sneak around to meet Barbara without Butch knowing about it, amongst the multitude of other subjects we covered. It seemed he spent more time with me than with her overall, but I can understand being a stickler for a scheme – he wanted every detail to be perfect to ensure nothing could go wrong, so of course he wanted to triple check every detail with me… even if we didn’t seem to spend all that much time talking about the specifics in the end. Nevertheless, over the next few weeks the pair of us would dine together, or walk together, or even read in comfortable silence beside each other almost every night of the week, in preparation for Cobblepot meeting his old love again when the weekend finally rolled around.

Those evenings spent with him were some of the best of my life. I have never felt so close to another person in every possible sense of the word. I have never felt so comfortable in the arms of another man, never so free in the openness of our conversations, never so perfectly content to share every secret and detail about my life with someone and never so honoured as to receive them from him in return. He did return my efforts you see, his outer shell seeming to break down as each new day passed, until it felt like I had reached an entirely different man at the core of all of the money and the fame, someone behind the perfect host and the successful business man, finally locating the innocent heart that had started it all.

Eventually, he told me the story of his past again. He no longer wrapped the truth in stretches and tricks and exaggerations, and instead earnestly shared with me the details of his life that he assured me very few people before me had ever been privy to. He had been born to a single mother who had been the cook for a wealthy family, whose son she had made the mistake of falling in love with. After falling pregnant with his child, she had chosen to leave when it became clear that her lover would not leave his family and run away with her, and so she had raised her son Oswald alone, keeping the details of his father as brief as possible and treating the entire subject as taboo. They had been very poor, and though Cobblepot had earned himself a place in college, he had been forced to do all manner of menial jobs in order to gather the money he needed to pay for himself. He had hated it of course, and after being pushed around by one too many uncaring bosses, he had quit it all to take up a job on a lake as a fisherman. 

He jokingly told me at this point that he had always liked fish, and that cold water had never really bothered him like it seemed to other people, so it had seemed like a perfect career choice for a while. While working there, he had come across a woman called Fish Mooney who somehow owned a boat on the lake (I was under the impression that her husband had died and bequeathed it to her, though Cobblepot did nothing to confirm any details, and there seemed to be an implication within the tale that perhaps some less than savoury business had occurred there…). One day a storm had been approaching while her boat was still out on the lake, and Cobblepot had rowed out to her to alert her to it and help her get safely back to the shore in time to avoid it. She was very grateful, of course, even referring to him as her ‘umbrella boy’ from then on for assuring her safety from the weather. She had somewhat taken him in after that, training him and mentoring him in a whole host of skills. She had assisted in a business in the town by the lake as well, though Cobblepot was very scarce on the details of that too, simply stating that it was a private matter and quite boring, though he seemed almost embarrassed to talk about it. The best I could get from him was that the business itself had been a club of sorts, but that some questionable dealings went on within its walls.

When Fish Mooney had died several years later, she had left a large sum of money to her dear umbrella boy, as well as the deed to the club in question (which again, had ended up in her name via apparently dubious means). Cobblepot should have been set for life on that basis, but the people she had worked with, a business ‘family’ of sorts, had set their claim to what she had left him. Cobblepot was only one man, and so after a very quick legal battle, a Mr Carmine Falcone had walked away with all he’d been gifted. But Cobblepot had been trained well, and with Fish Mooney’s tutelage guiding him, it had not taken him too long to set himself up as the eccentric millionaire he was known as today, taking the loose strands of Fish Mooney’s ‘business deals’ and building them into something of his own. Still, the details of these deals remained elusive to me, and I never wanted to pressure my friend too much to share what he was not willing to. I was simply content knowing I had been allowed to learn this much about him, and silently hoped he’d feel comfortable enough to share the rest at some point in the future.

Between our meetings I had occasionally managed to see Leslie again, and I fear I may have been developing a sort of crush on her. I have been known to fall fast for the women in my life who show me kindness, so I suppose it is not much of a surprise that this occurred. I didn’t speak of it to her of course, nor to Cobblepot who seemed disinterested and occasionally almost offended when I mentioned her in his company. I suppose technically we had a task to be focusing on and discussing other people was a sort of distraction from it… She never did join us for any of our talks actually… Perhaps she had pulled out from the plan, though whenever I asked her about it she simply said her work had been keeping her too busy.

One fateful evening, while I was lounging beside my best friend (was it too soon to call Cobblepot that? I never was too certain on the rules there), reading out snippets from a poetry book I was perusing as I slowly made my way through his extensive library, we received a pair of surprise guests. While it was fairly common for Barbara to be seen in these halls nowadays, Butch had accompanied her this time, and even I could feel the tension in the air as the brutish man stuck out a hand towards Cobblepot to shake as Barbara walked herself off to the side of the room to examine one of the many artefacts on the shelves. 

**“Oswald!”** The joviality in Butch’s voice sounded entirely fake, and Cobblepot’s expression had turned sour as he reluctantly shook the hand he was offered. **“Long time no see.”**

**“Butch. Always a pleasure to see an old friend.”**

I had not been under the impression that the two men knew of each other, at least not this personally anyway. Surely Cobblepot would have mentioned that in one of our talks about Barbara…? I didn’t have much more time to think about the matter though, as Butch turned his attention to me. 

**“Nygma right? Not heard from you in a while, you were supposed to get back to me about my job offer, remember?”**

I was about to apologise when Cobblepot took a half step in front of me and answered on my behalf. **“He’s not interested Butch.”**

There was a pause as the larger man’s eyes darted between the two of us. **“Oh I see how it is. Don’t want to help me but you’ll get your hands dirty for the Penguin, huh?”**

Now I was thoroughly confused, but again, before I could insert myself into the conversation, Cobblepot jumped in for me. **“Enough. This is not the way civilised people conduct business.”** He turned to me, the sharpness of his tone dropping off in an instant when he smiled in my direction. **“Edward, I’m sorry about this, but it seems I have a quick work matter to attend to. I shouldn’t be long; would you mind waiting for me? In the gardens perhaps? It is lovely weather after all, we shouldn’t spend the day cooped up inside anyway.”**

I slowly let my gaze shift between the other occupants of the room (Barbara had turned to face the three of us now, a wicked smirk on her face for some reason, like she was privy to a joke I was missing), but I was met with silence from each of them. **“Of course, take you time,”** I replied reluctantly a moment later, and made my goodbyes to my cousin and her husband. I obediently slipped out of the door and let it close behind me, and could hear muffled voices starting up again the moment it did so. 

Well, to the gardens then… except… I was… _so_ very curious about what the three of them were discussing. I constantly felt like I was missing something deeper going on, and never so blatantly as today, so it pained me to walk away from my chance of learning more. They said curiosity killed the cat…

But then they _also_ say satisfaction brought it back. As weak of an argument as that was, it cemented my decision, and despite ever moral fibre in my body telling me not to, I found myself creeping closer to the door again, and carefully pressing my face against it to try and pick up the sounds of voices from the other side. 

**“… you may have been her right-hand man but _I_ was her protégé. I think you need to remember that Butch.”** That was Cobblepot’s voice – I could recognise those dulcet tones anywhere. The words weren’t perfectly distinct but they were audible enough, especially since it seemed like voices had been raised already since I had left the room only moments before.

**“Yeah, yeah, say whatever you want, you know those buildings belong to me, and you know she’d want me to have them.”** I was fairly certain that was Butch’s voice, though his was less clear. He was presumably standing further away, and I felt an urge to open the door a crack and peek through to confirm my suspicions… but I couldn’t do that, oh no, I did not have the courage for such a bold move.

There was a surprisingly loud sigh before the one female voice in the room cut across the other two before they could get continue their apparent bickering. **“Are you two boys quite finished yet? We all know that issue isn’t getting solved today so let’s talk about the _fun_ stuff, shall we?”**

**“No, I am at _home_ , I am supposed to be enjoying my time away from all of this, and I do not appreciated you barrelling in here with your pet gorilla when you could have simply visited the Iceberg during office hours. I am attending to other matters right now.”**

Butch let out a loud ‘hey’ in response to Cobblepot’s insult, though Barbara cancelled out the noise with a laugh. **“Oh don’t worry Ozzie, I think _everyone_ knows about your _other matters_. Except the man himself by the looks of it. Are you really that slow, or is he just that stupid?”**

**“That is _not_ what I meant, and how dare you, E-”**  
A sudden noise behind me had me leaping a foot away from the door, turning to face the disturbance with my hands raised in surrender, ready to apologise for my incredibly rude behaviour to whichever member of staff had caught me spying. But there was no-one in the hallway with me, and a few more seconds of investigating alerted me to a large pigeon in the tree outside the nearest window, whose landing had caused the branch it was perched upon to smack against the glass and catch my attention. A false alarm then, and yet it still took me several minutes to calm my heartrate back down again, and by the time I remembered I was supposed to be listening to what was going on in the adjoining room, I had missed a large chunk of the conversation in progress. I pressed my ear against the wood again nevertheless, hoping that the sound to meet it would not be rapidly approaching footsteps…

Cobblepot was talking again, but I only caught the end of his sentence. **“… now that I have Thompkins working with me as well.”**

**“You mean the doc from the Narrows? The one Eddie’s just head over heels for?”** I heard Barbara cackle over the silence that followed her words.

**“… What?”** Cobblepot replied once her laughter had died away again.

**“Oh yes she told me aaaaall about it; the poor boy’s smitten! It’s adorable but it means you’d better get your skates on Ozzie, or he’ll be snapped up before you can make your move. And isn’t that what all this has been about?”**

There was another silence following her words, before Cobblepot replied in a voice that suddenly sounded strained. **“I don’t know what you’re talking about, this has always been about business and nothing more. However, if you have devolved into gossiping about my private life then I do believe we are done here.”**

**“Oh no you don’t,”** Butch’s voice again, **“we need to settle th-”**

**“WE ARE _DONE_ HERE!”**

The sudden increase in volume of Cobblepot’s voice had me jumping backwards again, away from the door I had been pressed against, only this time I did not rush to return to my position. I had never heard him speak like that, never heard such authority in his voice, never found myself almost in _fear_ of the power he was apparently wielding, which that shout had only begun to hint at.

I took that as my cue to leave, as late as it was now that I had spent so long eavesdropping already. Instead of creeping back towards the door, I took a few further steps backwards, before turning on my heels and rushing off down the corridor and out of sight, just in case the others should leave the room in the next few moments. Except, when I rounded the corner, I found my feet did not slow down, and I continued to make my way towards the exit despite being far enough away now to be considered safe from being discovered. Cobblepot had told me to wait, he had wanted to see me still after this meeting had concluded, and yet I was out of the front door without so much as a single glance backwards. I needed a moment, a night even, to gather my thoughts again after all I had just heard. I had obtained pieces to multiple puzzles and I needed some time to lay them out properly and try to fit them together. I couldn’t do that in this house, not with other people around. I needed space.

He would forgive me. Besides, I needed time to figure out what on earth I should say to _him_ after all of this too…


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After overhearing a little too much of a conversation he was excluded from, Edward decides it is time for answers, but is not quite sure how to get them. But when he finds himself in the company of Barbara, Butch, Leslie and Oswald all at once, it seems he might end up on the receiving end of more information than he had been hoping for.

I hid from Cobblepot for a while after that fateful meeting. It was not the mature response, I openly admit, but I couldn’t work up the courage to face him again for a while. You may judge me all you like for such a decision, but I had learned too much in too short an amount of time and did not know what to do with this forbidden knowledge.

Knowledge that I was still trying to piece together. There was some sort of formal business going on between Barbara, Butch, and Cobblepot himself, as well as a disagreement between Butch and Cobblepot about the ownership of a set of buildings that had once belonged to… Cobblepot had called himself ‘her protégé’ so that must have been the mysterious Fish Mooney from his stories… who Butch apparently knew as well somehow, if he had indeed been her ‘right-hand man’. So Butch and Cobblepot had a long history? Cobblepot had even called him an ‘old friend’. That didn’t tally very well with the impression Cobblepot had given of the situation – he had made it sound like he knew nothing at all of Barbara’s husband… did that mean he’d lied to me?

Leslie was involved in it too, though she hadn’t spoken a word to me about such a collaboration. She had mentioned back when all of this had started that she’d been to a meeting with Cobblepot so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she was working with him… Although, now that I was away from the moment and able to think back on her words, she had told me at the very first grand Cobblepot party we had attended that she had never met the man and didn’t even know what he looked like. Had things changed so quickly after that moment that she had become a business partner to the man almost immediately, or had she been spinning an elaborate lie as well?

There were more snippets to draw information from as well. Butch had seemed to imply that Cobblepot would have had a similar use for me as the one Butch himself had had in mind when he’d proposed I work for him… although that wasn’t a particularly useful insight when Butch had never actually relayed the details of said offer to me anyway. He had ended up rather distracted at that disaster of a party he had dragged me along to, and I’d managed to avoid him on the train ride to work every day since then, so we never _had_ managed to catch up again. I found myself actually annoyed about that now though – as uncomfortable as I am sure the conversation would have been, any extra data to solve this cacophony of mysteries would have been very appreciated at that moment.

There was… one other thing to consider too, though I had not yet settled on a conclusion for what it meant. Barbara had referred to Cobblepot’s ‘other matters’, which seemed to revolve around one particular man… And then she had referred to my affection for Leslie and told Cobblepot to hurry up or else I would be… snapped up? What did that mean? Was Cobblepot trying to use me for something, was this friendship false and simply a means to reach an eventual goal? But what was wrong with me liking Leslie in that case, why did Cobblepot have to rush, what were the irreversible consequences of my getting closer to a beautiful woman?

I suppose I could have just _asked_ him about it… but my confusion wasn’t the only reason I was staying away. I fear you will not understand this reason and will assume me weak for even suggesting it but… he had shouted. He had been angry, furious, his voice had sounded like an explosion in the neighbouring room so that I could have almost felt the heat of it through the door. That sort of impulsive emotional outburst had felt very familiar to me, though of course not coming from the man who I had felt nothing but safe with up until this moment. It had reminded me of my father. We do not have a strong relationship and the less said about him the better, but he had always been a violent man and I had never been able to live up to the impossible standards he had set upon his only son. His voice had often risen out of nowhere in exactly the same manner as Cobblepot’s had, and if one did not obey whatever his request had been, there would be physical consequences. Cobblepot would never lay a finger on me of course, and the anger had not even been aimed in my direction, so I knew that this connection I had formed between the two men was baseless, impractical, and entirely nonsensical. But despite my attempts at convincing my mind otherwise, the similarity was too striking to ignore.

Perhaps I am a coward. I certainly felt like one as I hid silently in another room to avoid answering the knock on my door when Cobblepot eventually came to locate me. His persistence was admirable though, as despite my efforts to ignore him and pretend I was not home, he returned to my doorstep daily in an attempt to earn my attention. I must be a coward then. How else could I dismiss the man who had been my closest companion over nothing but the ending of a half-overheard conversation?

I do not recall exactly how much time had passed before I allowed our paths to cross again, but I would estimate that it was a few weeks. My work life was sluggish and monotonous as always, which is of course why I have shared very few details about it with you – I fear you would not be able to read through a paragraph of explanation of the numbers I crunch without falling asleep on the page. But it was all I had to entertain myself with for a while, and it may well have been my intense craving for company that drove me back to Cobblepot’s door, heart all aflutter with nervous butterflies at this reunion that was only necessary because of my own self-imposed exile. 

When I knocked however, it was not Cobblepot who opened the door. Instead, to my surprise, it was the man I had met only once before, back at a restaurant so long ago now. **“Mr Zsasz?”** I greeted, though my confusion was clearly audible in my voice. **“Have I… come at a bad time?”**

**“No…”** the other man replied, staring at me with eerily wide eyes and a small smile that he did not seem to be aware was there. **“He’s all yours.”**

With that, the bald-headed man stepped past me and began to walk away down the driveway behind me, though I heard a distinct noise behind me that my paranoia told me was the sound of a gun being slid back inside a holster…

I had barely stepped across the threshold when I heard my name being cried out from the other side of the entrance hall in a very familiar voice, closely followed by a rush of movement until Cobblepot himself was by my side and wrapping tight arms around me as I was dragged immediately into a strong hug. 

Nothing could compare to the security one feels from an embrace as wholesome as the one Cobblepot could wrap me in. The moment those arms were around me, the rest of the world was sectioned off, leaving me safely away from it all with no worries or concerns or stress of any kind, and nothing at all to focus on but the way his fingers stretched across my back as though he longed to encompass more of me than he physically could. In fact, while I was held tightly within those almost possessive arms, I found myself incapable of remembering the concerns I had entered the house with, managing only to consider how ridiculous it was that I had ever found myself frightened of a blip of anger in the other man’s voice.

I didn’t speak while I was held, and it wasn’t until Cobblepot’s grip loosened and he leaned away to look up at me that I remembered one was suppose to at least greet the owner of the house one had entered. But he spoke again before I had the chance to correct my social faux pas. **“I was so worried about you, I thought perhaps something had happened. I was mere moments away from sending Zsasz and his men over to surround your house just in case. They are certainly _useless_ at performing the tasks my old staff found perfectly simple but they are a great improvement in terms of security at least.”**

He was talking rather quickly, and his hands did not leave my upper arms where they clutched me almost desperately, as though in fear that I may flee again. But even regardless of the pace, I was quite confused by the message he was relaying. **“You replaced your staff with Mr Zsasz’s men, for security reasons? And you thought I would need them too? … What’s going on Oswald?”** I perhaps sounded a little less patient than I normally would with my friend, but I had come here today certain in the fact that I would find out the details of the discussions I had been apparently left out of for too long and this seemed like a good point to start from.

The other man let out a relieved-sounding laugh, shaking his head dismissively with a wide smile as he added, **“Oh it’s nothing old friend, the business world has just become a little more cutthroat in recent days, and I was concerned you had perhaps gotten caught up in something that should not involve you.”**

I am sure he had intended those words to sound positive, to put my mind at ease by telling me that the things to be worried about should not affect me. But all I could hear in it was that I was being excluded again, and I found myself blurting out words without really taking the time to consider them. **“I want to be involved though Oswald. Butch seemed to think I was working with you over him; well, perhaps I could? He seemed to think my skills with numbers would be useful, so perhaps I could assist you in these business ventures you are undertaking?”** I could only hope I had not come across as too eager, though from the sound of my words as they echoed back to me, that may have been too much to hope for…

Cobblepot’s smile set firmly against his lips, calming and friendly but altogether certain, a preface to words that could not be argued with. **“That is very kind of you Edward but these are not matters you would want to get involved with. This whole situation is messy and troublesome and if I could avoid it myself, I would do. No, you will be much better off unencumbered by such madness. But you will stay for supper, won’t you? As I said, the new staff are not _quite_ up to the standard I would like from them but I am sure they can furnish us with something edible at least.”**

I wish I could tell you that I fought harder to be allowed in to the secret whisperings going on behind my back, but that was the only attempt I made that night. Cobblepot’s easy dismissal had my resolve folding like a napkin, and I allowed myself to be walked all over yet again as the conversation was dropped in favour of a discussion of food options instead. At least the evening was pleasant and confirmed to me that the spark between us had not diminished in the slightest despite our time apart. I suppose there is that old saying, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ that seemed to be just as applicable to our situation as to any other.

I had agreed long ago, back when Cobblepot and Barbara had first reunited, that I would stop by my cousin’s house for a visit at some point, and I had not yet made good on that promise. And so while I rekindled my friendship with Cobblepot after our brief stint of separation, I also made sure to contact Barbara and arrange a time for a small lunch date in the near future. Unfortunately, what I did not plan for was that the day we would meet would be the hottest day of the year. The weather was almost unbearable despite my summer clothing and I immediately regretted my decision to walk to her house instead of taking a more sensible method of transport. It was not an impossibly long trek after all, but as the sun beat down on my skin from above I quickly realised my energy would all but drain away before I could reach her doorstep. And yet I persevered, determined as I was to prove myself even to the doubting voice in my own mind, and while the detours to remain in the shade added enough time to the journey to make me a little late, I did arrive nevertheless, drenched in sweat and looking thoroughly dishevelled with far more regrets than I had started with, but still successfully at my destination.

I had assumed it would only be the three of us dining today, as it would be unusual for Butch not to joins us as well, but as I was invited into the house and led towards the table my hosts were already seated at, I heard more than the two voices that I had been expecting. I halted in my tracks as I passed through the door to see both Leslie and Cobblepot already present in the room as well, the former seated stiffly at the table while the latter was hovering somewhat uncomfortably by the window. 

Butch was sat at the head of the table, his expression set into one that seemed to reflect the amount of self-control it was taking not to storm across the room and throttle Cobblepot who was firmly avoiding eye contact as Butch glared daggers in his direction. Barbara on the other hand, was grinning almost wildly, and let out a shriek of laughter as I made my way into the room, standing from her chair to walk over to me with a glass of ice water in hand. **“Eddie! We’ve all been waiting for you! Now things can _really_ get started!”**

I was too confused to do more than offer a bemused smile at her greeting as my gaze crossed the room again. **“I thought it would just be… us?”** I murmured to her under my breath, trying to be discreet, but my host had other ideas about keeping our conversation subtle.

Loud enough to be sure that everyone in the room could hear her, she replied, **“Oh it was originally but I thought it’d be such _fun_ to get everyone together for a nice _chat_.”** The three other sets of eyes in the room simultaneously turned to glare in her direction at that, though Leslie’s quickly dropped back to the table a moment later. Perhaps she was my best bet for an ally at the moment, because as much as I found myself drawn towards Cobblepot as usual, he did not look in any mood to converse. As I was beckoned further into the room then, I seated myself beside Leslie who offered me an almost sympathetic smile… and then the room fell into awkward silence for a while. 

Barbara’s glee seemed to diminish the longer we were quiet for, though she continued to try and incite conversation from all of us for quite some time. The other three gave her short responses at best, adding to the tension building in the air of the room, and I myself was too exhausted from my journey here to offer much more than that in the way of conversation when her attention eventually shifted towards me. Finally, she plastered a very fake smile across her face and stood, leaning across the table towards myself and Leslie as she spoke (which we both subconsciously leaned away from). **“Well this has been a bust so far; how about we all go into the city, hmm? Maybe a nice drive will cool us down a bit and I’m sure we can find something to spice the day up if we look hard enough.”** She turned sharply to face Cobblepot who looked like he was about to raise on objection to such a plan. **“Ozzie, you can take me in your car, these three can meet us there.”** Her voice dropped all of a sudden into a much harsher tone as she added, **“Gives us a chance to _talk_.”**

There was really no arguing with Barbara when she had a plan, and so before long we were all traipsing towards the cars, Cobblepot and Barbara zooming off into the distance before we’d even settled into our seats. I wasn’t aware of any sort of destination being shared, but Butch seemed far less concerned about that than I did and he was the one driving, so we were forced to leave our fate in his hands.

It did not prove to be the best decision really, since after travelling for only a short while, he pulled into a street that felt rather familiar to me. **“I’ll be back, just got to check on something,”** he said as he clambered out of the car, leaving the two of us to sit alone in the backseat under the baking sunlight from above.

**“More like someone,”** Leslie muttered beside me, and the recognition suddenly clicked within my head that this was the place we had picked up that ‘Tabitha’ woman from… but surely that couldn’t be why Butch had stopped here…? **“Today has been a disaster already.”** My friend let out a loud sigh as she brushed hair out of her face, and seemed quite insistent on not looking in my direction. I had noticed a similar behaviour from her back at the house but had put it down to the atmosphere at the time. Now though, when we were alone…?

Perhaps I was imagining things, so I gave myself the benefit of the doubt and decided to take this moment of privacy to take a small but calculated risk. **“Leslie, I was wondering if you would perhaps like to go to dinner with me some time?”** I asked, my words rehearsed a hundred times over so that their delivery might not have sounded quite as natural as I would have liked it to.

The cringe I received in response was not a promising sign. **“Oh… Edward… I…”** Her gaze was flicking across our surroundings as though looking for a distraction she could use to not answer my question, but after failing to find one, she was forced to finally turn towards me. **“You’re a charming man, and _someone_ will be lucky to have you, but I’m sorry, I couldn’t. It just wouldn’t be fair.”**

**“Fair?”** That had not been the answer I was expecting, and even through the bruise developing against my heart I felt the need to dig deeper instead of doing the safer thing and letting the subject drop. **“What would be unfair about that?”**

Her eyes met mine for a moment, and she frowned deeply. **“You really don’t know?”** A slow shake of my head had her expression softening, as she added, **“There’s someone else who likes you. It wouldn’t be fair on them if I were to take up your offer.”**

I blinked at her for a moment, eventually offering a quiet **“Oh, I see,”** though in all honesty that had cleared up very little for me. I now simply had even more questions and so it wasn’t long before I launched into the most obvious one. **“Who is it?”**

**“I’m not sure I should sa-”** Her voice was cut off by a loud shout and a crash that came from the direction in which Butch had disappeared, and a moment later two loud male voices could be heard in the distance but coming ever closer. Both of our attentions were fixed on the location of the noise until we finally saw Butch stalking towards us, followed swiftly by a man I did not recognise with ears that pointed outwards, and a boiling red fury engulfing each of his features. The words he was yelling were not clear enough to make out, though the general message was coming across loud and clear to _leave_. Perhaps luckily then, it seemed Butch had that exact goal in mind, as he slammed the driver-side door of the car shut behind him, driving us off again in a hurry without a word to his passengers for the rest of the journey.

He pulled up outside a club that must have been a favourite haunt of his and his wife since Barbara was indeed already waiting inside. The room we found ourselves in was not very much cooler than the one we had left, and myself and Leslie dropped ourselves down in front of the fan and sat there in silence for a long while in the hopes of recovering from our stint under direct sunlight. 

Butch on the other hand, rushed straight over to Cobblepot the moment he entered the room, and grabbed the other man by the lapels of his jacket, shaking him roughly and growling, **“I’ve had enough of this, we finish this _now_.”**

Cobblepot’s gaze shot across to me, and then narrowed into a very pointed look at Leslie, who nodded almost imperceptibly in response before turning to me as well. **“Have you ever been here before Ed? It’s a gorgeous building, we should go and take a look around.”**

I was moments away from agreeing with her, so used to doing what I was told by anyone that it barely occurred to me that I had the option to say no here. In fact, I was half to my feet again before I stopped and looked back at the other three inhabitants of the room. This was just like the last time I had been ushered away, and with Leslie by my side there would be no way to sneak back towards the door and listen in… not that that had ended up going very well last time either. But just like then, I wasn’t actually being _told_ to leave… it was just being suggested that I did something else instead. So I set my jaw firmly and turned to Leslie to say, **“No thank you, I think I’ll stay right here.”** My words didn’t feel natural on my tongue as a flicker of worry, or perhaps guilt, flared up inside of me at my own defiance and I waited to observe the consequences of my actions.

Perhaps luckily for me, Butch did not seem to want to wait any longer, and launched straight back into his attack without sparing me a second glance. **“I don’t care what stupid claims you think you have to that building now Falcone is dead, I want your boys out of _my_ club by sundown or we go in all guns blazing.”**

Despite being held quite firmly in a much larger man’s grip, Cobblepot did not seem particularly perturbed by his predicament. In fact, he rolled his eyes at the threat that had been levelled at him. **“This is your problem Butch – you never see the bigger picture. This is not about _one club_ this is about the _empire_ the old man left behind. Fish’s club is the central piece: whoever owns that, owns Gotham. And the fact you can’t see that tells me everything I need to know.”**

Butch’s grip tightened until Cobblepot was being pulled up onto his tip-toes. **“Well guess what, you’re outnumbered, freak. Your little beanpole over there doesn’t count, the doc’s made it quite clear she’s not getting involved, so it’s me and Babs against little old you.”**

**“Awwww, it’s so _cute_ you still think I’m on your side.”** Barbara had walked closer to the two of them, and was now stood beside Cobblepot.

Pointing a gun at Butch’s head.

I jumped to my feet in shock, but Leslie wrapped a gentle hand around my wrist and shook her head, so I slowly lowered myself back down into my seat. Why was nobody reacting to this?! Was this normal?! Was this what I had been missing out on, violence and threats of death? … Perhaps Cobblepot had been right and I really _didn’t_ want to get myself involved in all of this, but… well it was rather late for such thoughts now, wasn’t it?

Butch didn’t seem as shocked as I was about this turn of events, though he did loosen his grip a little in response. **“Babs? What the hell is this, you been working with him behind my back?!”**

Barbara’s lower lip jutted out in a pout as she replied, **“Oh no, can you imagine? Going behind your spouse’s _back_? How awful.”** Butch’s expression dropped, and he finally let go of Cobblepot’s jacket as though admitting defeat against her statements. 

The smaller man took a moment to brush himself down and straighten his clothes, before taking up the torch himself. **“An accidental side effect of another venture thanks to Thompkins’ inability to follow simple instructions, but a very positive one in the end. It seems your ‘wife’ was no longer happy with your partnership. You were spending far too much time with your ‘secret’ affair and not enough time on your far more important business ventures, and so she leapt at the opportunity to join forces with a more powerful ally. So I believe your ‘all gun’s blazing’ approach would be far less successful than you think, given we’ve siphoned off all of your ever so loyal men by now as well.”**

I should have been thrilled with how many answers I was getting, should have been soaking up each new fact with as much enthusiasm as was possible, but I found myself far too confused by the sudden danger in the room to be able to piece what I was hearing together. And so I soon leaned towards Leslie to whisper a question, like we were simply watching a play and I needed to clarify the plot. **“Wait so… Barbara isn’t upset about the affair, just that Butch wasn’t… working enough?”**

Leslie seemed very hesitant to answer me, clearly not wanting to break her concentration away from what was happening as Cobblepot recounted how many times he had secretly met up with Barbara behind her husband’s back – though apparently to talk about _work_ of all things and not to rekindle a long-lost flame. But she seemed to realise quite quickly that answering was the quickest way to stop me from pestering her again, so without turning her eyes away from the other three, she leaned close to me to whisper back. **“Butch and Barbara aren’t married because they love each other. It was a practical arrangement. They were partners for a while on a few… behind the scenes projects, and marriage was an easy way to hide their collaboration and the… fruits of it.”** She was clearly trying to leave out a few specific details in her answer, but before I could question her further, Barbara had turned towards us.

**“Oh come on Eddie I thought you were supposed to be _clever_. We’re _criminals_. We kill people, we steal things, we sell things we shouldn’t. Ozzie’s been trying to ‘protect’ you from the truth but this is just getting ridiculous.”**

Cobblepot’s eyes had flown wide at her admission, and he rounded on Barbara despite moments ago proclaiming the benefits of their alliance. **“How _DARE_ you drag him into this h-”**

**“You’re the one who got him involved Ozzie, I’m just filling in the blanks for him like a good cousin. I know how much he _hates_ being lied to.”**

Had the situation been different I may have pointed out to the room that Barbara didn’t actually know me very well at all and that that very generic statement would apply to most people, which made it a fairly reasonable guess. She was right of course, I did not enjoy being the victim of lies, but I am not sure I could name a single person who _did_ like that. And even if I might have felt slightly stronger about it than most considering my lingering concern over the past few weeks that I had indeed been on the receiving end of nothing but lies from my best friend, her words were indeed still accurate. Instead though, I was still stunned into silence as Cobblepot finally turned to take a few steps towards me, the usually easy smile on his face now twisted with concern. **“Edward, it’s not as simple as that, I-”**

**“Simple?”** I echoed, because quite honestly that was the last word I would have used to describe any of this. **“Just tell me this Oswald: have you been lying to me, since we met? About your work, about Barbara, about all of this? Has everything been a lie?”**

He seemed to falter slightly, his smile dimming before he managed to stutter out a weak sounding, **“Not… not _everything_ …”**

My gaze dropped to the floor and I felt Leslie’s hand on my knee, squeezing it gently for comfort, before Barbara’s voice cut through the tension in the room again. **“Urgh, MEN! You’re _all_ hopeless! Oswald I do not have time for you _whining_ over a stupid heartbreak. You may have declawed Butch for now but this is _not over yet_!”** A silence followed her words as Cobblepot continued to watch me and ignore her, causing a squeal to erupt from her lips. **“That’s _IT_! Either kiss him right here and now or get your scrawny little _ass_ back in the car so we can finish this my way!”**

My attention shot upwards again and I met Cobblepot’s eyes, which were now wide in shock for a second time. His mouth opened as though to speak, though he seemed to change his mind half way through the effort, and soon rushed towards the door instead. I had never seen my friend so skittish, but then I was not quite able to focus on his behaviour in that moment. The person Leslie had said had liked me… no, it couldn’t be…

What happened next was a bit of a blur, but I remember Barbara following Cobblepot out of the door, and the rest of us leaving shortly after as well. On the drive home we stopped at Tabitha’s house again, only this time because there was a small commotion outside of it rather than just because Butch had his priorities badly ordered. Instead of sitting in the admittedly less violent sun this time though, Leslie and I were driven out of the car by our own curiosity to investigate. Rumours were spreading so quickly around the small gathering of people that it did not take long for us to overhear them, though it was not at all as easy to pick out which were true. Most were about Tabitha, and the subtle glances across to the man we had seen her with earlier that day told us that this was Theo, her brother. People were talking about how controlling he was, and how she’d finally escaped, run away with her secret lover (though Butch was as confused as we were so that one seemed unlikely). Other stories said that she was dead, killed by her brother, her lover, a random stranger, a jealous enemy. All that _was_ clear was that she was gone, and her brother was emotional about it – though anger, grief and confusion seemed to all be present in his reaction which did not help to clarify matters either.

I also heard mention of a car that had pulled up here not long before Tabitha was noted to be missing. The description made it clear as day that it was Cobblepot’s car that had stopped, but no-one seemed sure who had been driving it or even if they’d gotten out to talk to the siblings. And quite frankly I had been involved in too many mysteries today to care about asking any further questions. For perhaps the first time in my life, my curiosity was exhausted, and I wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep, and think about empty space and quiet things until all of the commotion in my head finally stopped whirring. 

We did eventually set off in the direction of home again, dropping Leslie off in another part of the Narrows on the way. She told me to contact her when I was ready to, and that she would talk me through everything if I wanted, but that I should rest for now because it had been a long day. Her plan sounded perfect to me, and I continued to stare out at the sidewalk in silence as Butch drove me back to his house, not bothering to request a detour to my own on the way. The walk would do me some good now the temperature had finally dropped.

My driving companion did not say a word to me for the entirety of the journey, and did not even look back when he climbed out of the car, instead barrelling straight towards the house where a lighted window told him his ‘wife’ was home already. I took the opportunity to slip away, leaving them to it despite the threat in each of Butch’s steps. What did I care if Barbara was in danger for all that had come out in today’s showdown? She didn’t care about me. Apparently no-one did. I am not sure why I was surprised by this of course – this was not exactly new for me. I suppose I had just hoped my new ‘friends’ in Gotham would not turn out to be the same as all the others I had had in my life so far.

I traipsed back slowly to my own home with all of these thoughts on my mind, stopping only briefly to look up at the Cobblepot mansion on my way. No lights were on so it seemed Cobblepot himself had not arrived home yet. And for once I was grateful. It lowered the chance of him knocking on my door later, though I had of course already discovered I was quite good at avoiding him when he did so. Perhaps that was what I would have to do again for a while then. I sighed to myself as I unlocked my front door and went inside, glancing automatically at the calendar hanging on the wall as I did so.

Today was my 30th birthday. I never celebrate my birthday but… this was still perhaps not the way I would have liked to have spent it…


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With so many secrets coming out all at once, Ed finds himself a little overwhelmed as he tries to process it all, though he inevitably finds himself back at Cobblepot's door to face his friend eventually, with a newfound anger in his heart at being kept in the dark again for far too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funnily enough, this chapter veered quite a bit off my original plan, but the more I think about it, the more I think this is more realistic so I'm quite happy with it. It's the same outcome anyway, I had just planned that the conversation would go differently, but this just goes to show that the characters take control sometimes and the writer has to just go with it. Also sorry about the delay, real life has been jam packed for the past few weeks with all sorts of good and bad, so I hope this was worth the wait!

…

Where to begin really?

I have learned from experience that it is entirely possible to become overloaded by information, and that there is a particular sort of sensation that comes along with such an occurrence. It likely differs for different people but for myself at least, though I experience it rarely with a mind such as mine, it feels like a throbbing, like my brain is finally packed completely full with knowledge and it would be fit to burst at any moment. I had woken up with that feeling far too often recently, most mornings starting with a hand against my forehead in automatic response against the pressure emanating from inside of it. And though I myself was surprised at the conclusion I had apparently drawn, I found myself silently cursing Cobblepot for causing all of this.

It was his fault after all. He had kept secrets from me from the beginning. He was the reason I was in this position. Barbara was right, he was the one who had involved me in all of this, and just because he’d tried to ‘protect’ me from the truth didn’t mean he wasn’t still responsible for all of it. And I was entirely torn about how to feel about it. I wanted to be angry, to hate him for what he had done, and part of me certainly did. He had played me like a fool, exposed my ignorance in front of the few friends I had while making it perfectly clear that he would have carried on forever if he could. My cousin who clearly only cared for herself had been the one to reveal the truth to me, and though I am sure that was entirely for her own interests (since the way Cobblepot had left the club we had been visiting after his secrets had been outed suggested to me that he had probably been quite malleable in Barbara’s hands during the car journey that followed), she had been the one to enlighten me. Leslie had helped too, she had filled me in on the details, so while I am not sure how much of a part she had played in the overarching fabrication, she did at least seem to care about me a little.

Cobblepot though? The more I thought about it, the less I was certain about where we stood. Had I been some sort of pet to him, someone he could treat and watch and control, a fish stuck in a bowl it can’t escape from, a dog lapping up every word from its master’s lips? Did he think so little of me? Did he think me stupid, boring, not worthy? Did I mean anything to him? I should have hated him, I should have been furious with him, I should have wanted to burn down that ridiculous mansion of his and forget any of this had happened.

But the worst part? Despite how strongly I believed in all of those sentiments, despite how passionately angry I now was about all that had passed over the last few months, all of the lies that had plagued my new life… I still felt so strongly about him. I still wanted to go around to his home, to hug him, to listen to him telling me everything was alright, to lie on the sofa beside him listening to him read from a book. I still wanted all of that with such a fervent desire that part of me wanted to drop everything and tell him I accepted his secrets and his lies and his patronising behaviour to me and the superiority in him that told him he could decide what was right for me. I wanted to be that pet, to voluntarily turn a blind eye to the troubles we had faced, to pretend nothing had happened and to fall back into the place he had designed for me. I _wanted_ that. And I _hated_ that I wanted that.

I felt so weak. And yet that feeling was so familiar. I had been brought up in a family that truly believed I was worthless, and that would try daily to convince me of that fact. Any flicker of intelligence I showed would be quashed in a moment as my father declared it to be a lie or the result of me cheating. I always felt weak, and I always fell back into that same position in the hierarchy, the one who was bullied and pushed around by everyone, the one who could be easily convinced into doing anything because putting up a fight risked the few positive relationships I could gather. How could I say no to someone if that no would make them leave me? 

I spent far too long curled up on my bed, thinking over these details, dwelling on memories of my past, and the amount of times I had been in this exact situation, while also considering how this was entirely different because in all of my time I had never experienced a closeness like this one. I didn’t go to work, nor did I answer the phone calls that I am certain would be to tell me I was fired. I didn’t answer the door, though the silhouettes that walked away seemed to have been of both Cobblepot and Leslie as the days dragged on. Quite honestly, I think I could have stayed like that for far longer, as the questions and scenarios swirling in my head never did reach the answers or conclusions they were looking for. I was simply stuck on loop, with no-one to talk to and get further input from to stop the cycle from just continuing around again.

It was a surprise flash of anger that eventually broke me from my melancholy. On a trip towards my kitchen cupboards to scavenge for what little food I had left now that I had not been shopping in quite some time, I came across a note that had been delivered to my house that had the words ‘Happy Birthday’ along the top of the page. I excitedly dug it out from beneath the old newspaper I had discarded there, only to find that it was not a belated birthday card from, say, my parents or even a work colleague, but was in fact an advertisement for a fish delivery service that was celebrating its one-year anniversary… 

That should not have been a surprise to me at all considering I have never received a birthday card in the mail before, and since no friends here knew the date of it anyway, but it suddenly dawned on me that there had not even been a whisper of a celebration of the fact that I had turned 30 amongst all of this madness. Not so much as a half-hearted acknowledgement, nothing. And again, this should not have shocked me since no-one could have known, and yet an anger boiled inside of me nevertheless. I had been ignored again, pushed aside, trampled over, so that everyone else could deal with their problems while little Eddie was left to wait patiently in the hopes of a sideways glance in his direction. Moving to Gotham had been a new opportunity for me and yet _again_ I had been underappreciated and undervalued, I had been thought to be an idiot, I had been pushed aside for more important business, and I had ended up as the same jittery loser I had always been. 

This was supposed to have been a fresh start, a chance to change all of that, and yet it had happened anyway. Well, since I had nothing left to lose now, it didn’t have to stay that way, did it? 

Without truly planning any of the steps past my immediate impulsive action, I stormed out of my house towards Cobblepot’s neighbouring home, the sudden fury in me maintaining itself as I stalked up the path and banged loudly on the front door. Leslie had said I could talk to her when I was feeling ready, and I had been fully intending to take her up on that offer, but now I wanted to _shout_ at someone, and it was not her that deserved it. 

When I received no answer to my knocking, I remembered what my friend had said about his new incompetent staff, and decided to let myself in regardless of the response – not something I would usually dare do out of fear of seeming impolite, but my body was fuelled on adrenaline rather than logic at that moment and so that thought didn’t even occur to me. **“Cobblepot?”** I called out as I walked across the hall, poking my head into each room I passed as I tried to locate the other man. **“Where are you? We need to talk.”**

My search continued for quite some time with no voice responding to my calls no matter how often I repeated them. The sky was slowly beginning to dim outside and the sunlight coming in through the windows was lessening with each passing moment, and yet no lights turned themselves on inside the house to give me a hint as to where I should be heading. It was in fact mostly luck that had me locating my friend in the end. I had stepped into the library to see if it was occupied, and had paused as the familiarity of the room had captured me for a moment. This was where we had spent most of our time together after all. That hesitation meant that I caught sight of a small movement on the other side of the room as I was turning to leave, and by squinting through the encroaching darkness, I eventually realised there was a figure seated in the back corner beside the window. **“Oswald?”**

Even at such close proximity, my call received no response, and the anger from earlier began to burn stronger inside of me again as I slammed the door shut and moved into the room. As I strode closer and my eyes adjusted to the growing darkness, it became clear that this man was indeed the friend I had been searching for, though he was slumped low in his seat, and I spied a bottle in his hand when a glint of light bounced off the glass. I moved over to the table where I knew an electric lamp was perched, and switched it on before turning back to my companion.

The bottle in his hand had been a hint to prepare me for the sight that met my eyes. He was drunk, quite certainly, and was making a valiant effort to avoid meeting my gaze as I stepped in front of him again. I was rather at a loss for how to proceed. Conversations rarely flowed naturally when I was tasked with starting them, but perhaps luckily for both of us, my emotions spoke for me before I could overthink this. **“Talk.”** A command, not a request, which was unusual enough in itself that Cobblepot finally looked up at me in response to it.

He shuffled uncomfortably in his chair, moving the bottle closer to him but at least not attempting to lift it to his lips, as I was quite sure I would have slapped it from his hands if he had tried to. **“It’s too late for that,”** he mumbled quietly, clearly reluctant to start any form of conversation with me, but apparently not wanting to completely ignore me either.

His answer did nothing to satiate my still substantial anger, so again, I found words reaching my lips before I could tangle myself up in deciding how to phrase anything. **“That’s not good enough. I don’t care if you think it’s too late, I deserve to know. Everything. About your work, about Barbara and Butch, about Leslie, about _us_. So I _said, TALK_!”** The volume of my voice did not raise, but the strength of it did, the pitch lowering into something more firm and confident that even I was a little confused by. But it appeared to be effective, as Cobblepot frowned at me before straightening up a little in his seat and making a weak attempt to clear his throat.

**“Yes… yes you’re right… But I’m afraid I don’t know where to start Edward… There’s so much t-”**

**“And whose fault is that?”** I had snapped out the sentence so automatically that even I was taken aback by the sound of it, and I found myself staring at the air in front of me as though expecting to be able to physically see the words that had escaped. Cobblepot was doing a similar thing, frowning up at me in clear surprise at this shocking U-turn from my usual pliable self. I did not stand up for myself very often, and it seemed that my self-defensive side was quite loud now that it had finally been allowed to speak. But I had been through so much recently that the inside of my own head barely felt recognisable while it remained clogged up with half-answered questions and concerns. **“In fact, actually, no, I’ve worked most of it out for myself by now. Leslie told me about Butch and Barbara, and presumably she’s working with you because you’re helping to fund the clinic she works at, right? This Fish Mooney you keep talking about was a criminal who taught you her ‘ways’, and the club she tried to pass on to you was the centre of operations for all of her dealings that you then took over from her. Butch worked with her too so wants the club, but you were the one who managed to get it back from Falcone, hence this stupid war the two of you have going on. Barbara just seems to be an opportunist who’s bored of working with a man now so distracted by lust, so she teamed up with you to get ahead in the game again. I don’t even want to know the sort of crime you’re involved in but I can guess anyway. So does that about summarise most of it?”**

There was a drawn-out silence between us once I’d finished my monologue of the details. It hadn’t exactly been difficult to piece those facts together from what I’d heard in snippets before, and I wasn’t really asking Cobblepot to confirm that I was right when I knew I had to be. All I was looking for was an opportunity to skip straight through to the only part of the equation that I had not yet managed to fathom. The hesitance in my friend’s reply hinted that perhaps he realised that was what I was doing as well, though it was too late for him to try and do anything about it now. He wasn’t going to talk me out of it. **“… Yes, that covers most of it…”** was the reply I finally received a few moments later, the other man dragging out the final syllable of his sentence as though trying to hold onto his side of the conversation for as long as possible so that I could not speak again.

He was perhaps right to be worried, as my next questions required direct answers. **“So what about us then? Why did you really want to spend so much time with me? Why did Leslie have me set you and Barbara up if your ‘business partnership’ idea only came up after you’d reunited? Why did Butch think I was working for you? Why did Barbara tell you to kiss me? _What is going on?_ ”** Another brief silence followed my words, although this time Cobblepot had used the opportunity to try and take another swig of his bottle, resulting in me actually snatching it from his grasp this time and slamming it down on a nearby table so he had not choice but to respond to me.

It still took a while for it to come, and even then his words were mumbled, fumbled, uncertain and entirely out of character for the man I had come to know. **“Do I have to spell it out for you?”** he muttered first of all, eyes darting around the room to land on everything but me. **“Do I really have to say it? Isn’t this embarrassing enough? Why do you think I’m hiding here Edward? I risked my empire just to spend more time with you and it’s all come crumbling down now. Barbara’s running off with Butch’s hussy to get her own personal revenge, and she’s taken what she wants of mine with her, so I guess that’s the only other detail you missed. I can rebuild but what’s the point? None of this even matters anymore without you. The money, the house, the fast cars, the loud parties, they were all filling some shallow want in me but it all became irrelevant once I found you. A real friend, a true friend, who liked me for me and not for my status or my wealth so can you really blame me for falling in love? It’s not like these things are a choice.”** There was a slight slur to his voice already, and I got the impression he was making no effort to choose his words before releasing them, simply allowing himself to ramble and hoping the information he was trying to get across made its way out in the middle of the mess.

It did, or at least, something had made it to my ears that had made my breath hitch in my throat. **“Are you saying… you’re… in love with me?”** It sounded almost humorous to say those words, so impossible did they sound to me even having just heard my friend say such a similar sentiment. It was why I had to confirm the fact, because it made more sense for me to have misheard him than for that to be the truth.

Cobblepot shrugged in response, an overdramatic bounce of his shoulders like he was putting too much effort into showing that he didn’t care. **“What does it matter if I am? If anything was going to happen it would have done so by now, and Barbara stole my chance to tell you so she’s blown it for me anyway. If she’d just let me do it how I had been _planning_ to then I could have had yo-”**

**“Excuse me?”** I interrupted, taking a step closer to my friend automatically, and moving to the side slightly so I could lean my legs against the neighbouring sofa for support, just in case they should choose to wobble. **“You could have _had_ me? Isn’t that rather down to me, and not to your method of unveiling your lie?”** It was an odd decision of mine to attach my indignation to that final sentiment, rather than try to work through the other emotions bubbling up in my head. But this felt like a perfect excuse to ignore those completely in favour of something far less confusing. 

I was met with another over the top shrug, though no words followed it this time, and we were soon plunged into another silence as I admitted defeat and sunk down onto the arm of the sofa I was resting against. This gap in our conversation went on for far longer than the last one had as the two of us stared at the floor between us until the night had finally wrapped itself around the building entirely, and the only remaining light came from the single bulb beside us.

I had known this fact. Barbara had made it quite clear, but I had been somehow denying it until now, and even my weak attempt at distracting myself hadn’t been enough to hold back the runaway train of my thoughts for very long. Oswald was in love with me. Right from the beginning of our friendship it seemed. A part of me was certainly flattered because I was quite sure that I was in fact unlovable and this was some of the only evidence to the contrary I had ever received. But that was possibly the only positive emotion I was feeling right now, as everything else came down to questions I was not sure I wanted to know the answer to. What did this make our friendship? Had everything always been fuelled by an ulterior motive? All those times we had curled up beside each other in an evening, all those soft touches and gentle glances, did they all mean something else now? I had never had a friend like this so I had assumed all of that was normal and entirely platonic, but had I been wrong this whole time? Was none of that real if I didn’t return those feelings?

… Did I return those feelings? That was an entirely new set of queries I wasn’t sure I was ready to answer yet. If these feelings I felt towards Cobblepot were entirely different to any friendship I had had before, how was I to be sure that they weren’t romantic in nature? I had pursued women before of course, Leslie being the most recent, but the way I felt towards them was entirely different to this, and up until now I had been sure _those_ feelings were love. But this was stronger, so very much stronger, but also so different so… what did that _mean_? Cobblepot had apparently had months to dwell on all of this but I had only had seconds to try and process it all. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t demanding an answer from me, he had been allowed to consider the question at his own pace while I had had the topic thrown at me almost out of nowhere. Besides, it would be unfair to just leave without giving him some sort of response anyway, but… how could I possibly talk to him about a subject I had no idea on myself?

**“I can’t.”** An hour could have passed before I spoke again, I was so unaware of the passing of time. It had been long enough that Cobblepot jumped when I broke the silence, but he made no attempt to interrupt my speech, even as I left a long pause after the first blurted response I could muster. **“I’m seeing someone el- no I’m not, Leslie said no.”** Somehow my mind had tried to cling to that excuse without working it through to the end, so that it was only as I spoke it aloud that I realised it would not work here. So I needed something else. **“I… we’re fighting, arguing, we’re… even if I did feel that way, I should hate you now for all of your lies. We would have to solve this first and it would take time, and then…”** And then what? That just took me back to where I was now, revaluating the past and trying to work out how on Earth I felt about it. It was too much still, too much all at once and I just needed to get out of this conversation.

Cobblepot seemed to realise that I had stalled again, and he slowly got to his feet, suddenly seeming a lot more sober than he had been when I’d first entered. **“What are you saying Edward?”** He approached me slowly, and my gaze lifted to meet his as he stopped by my side, our eyes level for once as my perching had lowered my height, and we stared at each other for a while. This was the same man I had longed for each and every moment with, the same man who had been the centre of my thoughts for so long, the man who had become my main hobby not out of necessity but out of want, the only person in the world who felt as comfortable to me as solitude did. And I could not shake the feeling that if he leaned in and kissed me right at this very moment, _I would kiss him back without a moment’s hesitation._

That realisation made me jump, though not out of shock but rather out of how familiar it felt to me despite me not being aware of having ever thought those words in that order with regards to my friend before. It was more like I had finally _found_ words for what had always been there. But those words didn’t _help_ me – if anything they made things worse. It would have been so much easier to tell him I had no feelings for him in return, to tell him that he was a man so obviously this was not something I could ever entertain, or even just to say that we were and always would be friends and that the line that separated friend from something more was a strong and stable one that could never be crossed. But my brain could not provide me with those sentiments, couldn’t confirm that they were true, and worse, seemed to doubt them entirely the more I stared into those oh so familiar eyes…

I needed time. That was all. Again, just like before, just like whenever I faced a riddle I could not answer, I needed time to turn it over and think it through. So like a fool I scrambled backwards from my seat, positioning myself behind the sofa as though I needed a physical barrier between us, even as Cobblepot moved to go around it and close the distance again. **“I, I, I, I have to, I don’t, _no_ , this is, no, why do this to me, this is unfair, this is selfish, this is, no.”** Any semblance of the confident, defensive man who had first entered here had vanished, and my voice had jumped back to the squeaky pitches that at least felt more familiar as I stuttered and stumbled over what to say to get myself out of here. Cobblepot had stopped moving, and his face had fallen into an expression of confused sadness, which only doubled my motivation to get away from here before I could make things any worse than I already had. I knew I had handled this poorly, terribly even, but it was too late to make it better as I retreated back towards the door with further ramblings that only succeeded in digging me deeper into my own hole. **“It wouldn’t be practical, it’s all about practicality, emotions and feelings, they don’t really matter when you think about it, it’s practicality, logistics, yes, they’re the important things in a decision like this, it doesn’t matter what I think about you or how much I think about you or even _how_ I think about you, it’s just the practicalities to take into account, that’s all.”**

**“Edward…”** My rapid expulsion of any sentence that popped into my head only got louder as my friend tried to interrupt me, and my retreat sped up until I was scrambling to open the door to the library that I had backed myself up against. I managed something similar to a farewell before diving out of it and rushing to the front door, not daring to look back in case I was being followed, unsure of whether such a thing would result in further useless words from myself, or in me rushing back to his arms full of apologies and promises I was not sure I could keep. 

Once I reached the street outside I did not stop walking, and instead found myself continuing to rush along the road as though I was desperate to reach a destination I was not yet aware of. My pace slowed eventually, though I continued to traipse past hundreds of unfamiliar houses on an impromptu midnight stroll, hoping to give myself time to think but not really reaching any conclusions in the process. It was like something in my brain was stalling and rebooting every time I tried to get to the end of a thought, so that all of the answers remained just an inch out of my grasp. 

Eventually I admitted defeat even to myself, and turned my feet back in the direction of home. At one point while I was but a few feet from my house, I heard a bang like a car backfiring and I turned eagerly towards the road, expecting to see Cobblepot behind the wheel of one of his luxurious cars, racing towards me to talk me through all of this and help me work it all out. But there was no sign of him, and I felt my heart sink even as I realised how unlikely it was that that scenario could have ever occurred.

I let myself into my house and slumped down into a seat at my kitchen table, dropping my head into my hands and focusing all of my effort onto fighting the lump that was rising in my throat. Why was I even upset? Cobblepot was the one who deserved to be upset, and yet here I was, making this about me… But how could I not, even just working out how I felt about him could change my entire life, regardless of whether the two of u-

A sharp ringing cut me off from my thoughts and I looked up in confusion at the phone on a side table that I always managed to forget that I owned. It had been a gift from Cobblepot, a phone in my own house, and really I had only used it to talk to him, and occasionally to my work (and a flood of guilt hit me again as I remembered the many missed calls from said job that I had managed to forget about in the midst of everything else). It took a moment before I realised I should answer it, and I could only manage a shaky **“Hello?”** when I did so.

**“Nygma?”** The voice on the phone was hard to place, but a moment later I managed to pin it to Zsasz of all people, that strange ‘partner’ of Cobblepot who seemed to exude violence in every smile and whose appearance so far had only ever managed to remind me of how much I did not yet know about my friend. So I was anxious already as I listened on after confirming my identity.

**“You should ah, probably come back over here.”**

I sighed, though the breath trembled as it came out of me, and I began to slide down the wall I was leaning on. **“I know I should but you don’t understand, I can’t, I- ”**

**“No, shut up a second.”** I was cut off by Zsasz’s voice sounding far more serious than I had been expecting, and all of a sudden I remembered how intimidated I had felt when I had first been introduced to the man. But those memories cleared from my mind in an instant as I heard the reason for why I needed to be quiet. **“Penguin’s been shot.”**


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years later, Edward reflects on his current situation, and aims to tie up the loose ends in the best way he can manage so that he can truly move forwards with his new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! The final chapter! I've done it, I've completed a long fanfiction! I am very proud of myself right now. A huge thank you to everyone who's been reading and leaving kudos, and a massive unbelievably big thank you to those who have left comments, and in particular Knischick, DanniR and danniek who left multiple comments, and mordredllewelynjones who has commented on every chapter <3! I hope you guys enjoyed it! If anyone wants to ask any questions or request anything further from me, feel free to send an ask on my Tumblr, 'thepuzzlepirate'. Thanks again everyone, and happy reading!

It was two years before I saw Butch Gilzean again.

After Barbara had stormed out of the club with Cobblepot on that ever so fateful day, she had indeed somehow convinced Tabitha Galavan, Butch’s ‘bit on the side’ as I believe they refer to it, to join her in whatever future plans she had been concocting when it became clear that Cobblepot would not be the ally she had wanted. I imagine it had started off as a revenge plan, to simply take Tabitha away from Butch, and that she may well have kidnapped the other woman if mere words had not worked to remove her. In the end though, and I have no idea how the conversation played out, Tabitha voluntarily went with her, and Butch had been forced to confront both of them when he had arrived back at the house later that night. Again, I cannot tell you very much about how that three-way battle went down as I had entirely different things on my mind at the time, but I _can_ tell you that all three of them disappeared from Gotham shortly after. The married couple with their now mutual friend had moved out of their illustrious home to relocate to somewhere distant, presumably to regroup and to plan, outside of Gotham where they would not be easily disturbed. 

I had lost all contact with them after that, not that I had tried very hard to maintain it anyway. What I had come to know as my life had already fallen to pieces by that point, so why attempt to maintain a connection with the people I cared about the least? I was almost happy to see them go, one less thing to think about amongst everything else…

So by the time I finally did quite literally ‘bump’ into Butch while cutting through a silent side alley several hours away from Gotham one frosty January morning, I had had time to prepare my thoughts well in advance, and I knew exactly what I wanted to say to him.

**“Butch? Butch Gilzean? What a surprise, I’ve not seen you in years.”** I had always planned to start off slow, to ease him into a conversation he may otherwise want to slip away from, and my familiar naïve smile could only help me to look as unthreatening as I always did in the shadow of such a brute. **“How have you been, how’s Barbara?”**

He was certainly hesitant, and he warily looked me up and down a few times before deciding to actually answer me. **“Nygma, yeah, long time no see…”** I noticed him glance away behind me, and his lips were already beginning to move when he turned his attention back towards me, ready to release an excuse about why he didn’t have the time to stay and make polite chit-chat with someone so unworthy of his company.

But I did not imagine I would get this opportunity again, so I knew I could not let this one-sided awkwardness rob me of my chance for answers. **“You disappeared so quickly, I never got a chance to say goodbye. What happened, where did you go?”** If I simply bombarded him with questions, he would not have a chance to politely excuse himself… or at least, that was my theory anyway. Questions always seemed to work in my favour for some reason; it was like I had an affinity with them.

The response I received was a little more engaged as well so it seemed that my theory was proving to be accurate. **“Yeah well Cobblepot made it pretty clear we weren’t going to be able to operate in Gotham so we figured we’d go wider and come back once he’d been taken out.”** Perhaps this surprise reunion had caught him off guard enough that he didn’t have the forethought to consider the consequences of talking so openly about crime with someone seemingly so uninvolved in it. Or perhaps he feared me so little that he did not think I would do anything with the information I had just inadvertently received from him.

I could play to that though. **“Taken out?”** I repeated quietly, my voice wavering slightly as I feigned not completely understanding the implication of his words.

He gave a somewhat noncommittal shrug, more comfortable with the power hierarchy between us at last as he rolled his shoulders back to look larger, preparing to step around me and end this conversation prematurely. **“That Theo Galavan wanted revenge on the man who’d been ‘corrupting’ his sister, so I told him it was Cobblepot to try and level the score again. Once I’d figured out what actually happened to Tabby and made sure she was safe, I went back and gave him the tip off. The guy was mental, kept talking about how he would act as a ‘warrior for god’ or something like that, honestly he probab-”**

**“So you _did_ cause it.”**

My voice had dropped, a cold hint of steel to it now that was enough to stop Butch in his tracks, and when his gaze landed on me again my expression had set into a certainty he had not witnessed there before. **“I thought you must have done. Why else would the idiot have wandered into the mansion of all places? I had wondered if perhaps it had been Barbara but no, the brute force approach is definitely more fitting for a gorilla like you.”**

**“What did you just say to me?”** My companion’s lips had twisted into a bemused smile, but he was yet to react in a more obvious way than that, which meant I still had the upper hand. But not for long now; I had to use it well.

My hand slipped into the inside pocket of my jacket, the thin leather gloves protecting the hilt of the knife from any potential fingerprints as I gripped it carefully and turned the blade towards Butch’s stomach, taking a swift step forwards so that my action was mostly shielded from view as I plunged the weapon into the stomach of my companion and sliced it sideways to open up a gash. The unpredictability of the gesture kept Butch practically silent, a gasp being all he could manage in place of the scream that might have saved him, as I retracted the knife and wiped it clean on a handkerchief I then threw at the feet of the other man. **“You can understand then of course, why this is simply a necessary rebalance of our situations. From here on out our slates are clean, though I imagine that will not matter within a few moments when you’ve finished bleeding out. I will keep this fair though, I will not watch your death. You weren’t present when Cobblepot was shot so I will return the favour and let you die in peace.”** The knife was slid carefully back into the sheath hiding in my inner pocket as I gave one last glance over my victim. Pitiful. He had been so intimidating when I had first met him. Now he was nothing to me.

He was struggling for breath already, one hand pressed against the gaping wound in his abdomen while the other weakly stretched out towards me as I stepped out of reach of his swipes. **“What… _happened_ to you?!”** There was a fury in his voice but it was subdued already as his strength continued to leach out of him at an impressive rate, and I turned my back on him to walk away before he’d even finished his question.

I was halfway down the alley, fastening my jacket over the light blood splatter on my shirt to try to disguise it before I reached the crowds on the main streets again, before I deigned to grace him with an answer. My words were certainly not spoken for his benefit though so it didn’t matter very much to me whether he could hear them or not. The answer was a declaration to myself, a comforting fact spoken aloud like an official proclamation even so long after the change had occurred. **“I was reborn.”** I was no longer the timid little outsider who knew nothing of the secret underbelly of Gotham city. I was part of it now, sucked in at last after so many people had tried to keep me safe from it for so long. Gotham corrupts most of its inhabitants with time; it really was inevitable that it would crawl under my skin and infect me eventually.

I had considered leaving Gotham myself at numerous points of course. All plans to do so had failed though whenever the realisation had hit me again that the only other place I could really call home contained parents that had no desire to reunite with me. So I stayed, even as everyone else moved away. I heard that Leslie had made amends with an old fling of hers, the cop she had once told me about, and the two of them had left Gotham behind for far lighter pursuits than the Gilzeans had. I believe they may be engaged now. In truth I did not know too many more people than that anyway. I had resigned from my job (before they could tell me I was fired), but I had not really bonded with anyone in my office anyway. And I had never minded any of that because I had always had Cobblepot, and I had not needed anyone other than him…

I had moved away from the street I had lived on, the sight of the large empty house beside mine becoming too much to bear, and I had settled on the other side of Gotham in the mansion that had once been owned by the very Carmine Falcone who had once stolen Cobblepot’s fortune from him. You have heard enough already about the battle over the old man’s properties after his death, but with Butch and Barbara leaving the city to regroup and Cobblepot obviously not making a claim for himself, I had found it easy enough to procure the deeds while organising Cobblepot’s estate. I do not say it was entirely legal for me to do so, but I had somewhat lost the will to care about such a technicality after all that had happened.

I headed back to this new home of mine after my rendezvous with Butch, and shrugged my jacket off at the door before heading upstairs towards one of the several large bedrooms. It was my usual path whenever I entered the house and my feet took me there automatically without a thought. I was quiet in opening the door, careful not to wake the potentially sleeping inhabitant, but I realised I had need not be so cautious as I heard my name called from the other side as soon as the handle began to turn.

**“Edward? … Is it done?”**

Even two years later his voice was softer than it had once been, perhaps affected by a fear or a caution he had developed since his injury… or perhaps because of who he was addressing. **“Yes Oswald, it’s done.”**

I saw his smile as I stepped into the room, though I didn’t have time to marvel at it as I still continued to do every time it was unleashed in my direction, as he made an attempt to swing his legs off the bed and come towards me. I caught sight of the wince on his face and rushed across to his side, arms out ready to catch him if he should try to stand which earned me a roll of his eyes for my efforts. **“I’m fine Edward, don’t fuss,”** he grumbled back, though he did pause his ascension and allowed me to sit beside him instead, one of his own hands dropping to his knee though he batted mine away as I made a move to reach out to it as well. **“I would have liked to see the look on his face when he underestimated you for the last time.”**

I sighed slightly at his stubbornness before allowing my companion to ‘distract’ me with his topic. **“You didn’t miss much, I don’t think his single braincell was able to muster up anything more than shock at the turn of events.”** That earned me a muted chuckle, though it was clear from the way the other man’s eyes lingered on his own leg now that the distraction had been as much for him as it had been for me.

The bullet wound in Cobblepot’s leg had indeed been a significant threat to his life. He had spent weeks in hospital battling against blood loss and infection, and then months further learning how to walk again in spite of the significant muscle wastage that had occurred. He had been told the pain would never go away, that the limp was permanent and that a cane was now a necessity. And as time went on the relief at his own survival had slowly been replaced by a grief for the future he now had before him. I could understand why he felt like that of course, but I could never bring myself to agree with his melancholy. He was _alive_. Zsasz had been fast enough to… ‘deal’ with the shooter (and the last I had seen of Theo Galavan he had been in an absurd number of pieces…) after he’d only managed one poorly-aimed shot, and Cobblepot had been rushed to hospital in the nick of time. One could call it a miracle if one believed in such things. I prefer to call it fate.

He had required a significant amount of daily assistance even after leaving the hospital, and I had found myself eagerly on hand to provide it, all previous concerns over our relationship abandoned in favour of the more immediate worries. They came back over time, slowly but surely, and we have talked at length on numerous occasions about them while my friend has rested his leg in front of the fire after a long day of effort. After I had made myself responsible for keeping his affairs in order while Cobblepot was in hospital, there was really no way he could keep me out of his work any longer, and with time he came to appreciate how much of an asset I could be. Our professional relationship is now an intimidatingly strong one in the eyes of our competitors. And as a friend I have worked to push past the trust issues that could have plagued us forever had we not both been willing to fight for this. As for the other feelings that he had finally told me were there…

Cobblepot’s gaze had met mine as we sat in comfortable silence besides each other, both lost in our thoughts about the other person judging by the familiarly wistful look in his eyes. **“Slowly,”** I said a moment later, leaning down to kiss his cheek briefly before standing up again with a hand outstretched towards him to help him climb gradually to his feet.

His attention followed me, and he gave me a very serious nod to show me that he agreed to the conditions of both the points that I was stressing in that one word. **“Slowly,”** he repeated, taking my hand and squeezing it gently before using it for the support he needed to lever himself into a standing position beside me. Without the rushing of his earlier attempt, he was far more successful, and my heart was not forced to stutter again at a wince of pain. He had to learn that he could not rush things, and that trying to would only cause hurt. He had to pace himself, he had to work through each barrier individually and build up to the outcome that he wanted… The future was bright, and we would get there in the end.

Just… slowly.


End file.
